Thursday, January 28, 2010
Congress often is loath to make tough fiscal decisions that may spur anger from constituents, which is why a plan was devised to create a special bipartisan commission that would craft a solution to reduce the nation’s ballooning deficit. But when the legislation creating the commission came up for a vote on Tuesday in the Senate, it fell six votes short of avoiding a Republican filibuster—the same exact number of Republican co-sponsors who changed their minds and voted “no.”
The turnabouts were Republicans Sam Brownback of Kansas, Mike Crapo of Idaho, John Ensign of Nevada, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and John McCain of Arizona. Almost all of them said they changed their minds because of concerns that the commission might result in tax increases, although many believed the vote-switching was more political than fiscal.
As conceived, the commission was expected to produce a package of tax increases and spending cuts designed to bring down what is now a nearly $2 trillion hole in the budget. Members of Congress would have had to approve the recommendations without making amendments.
In his State of the Union address Wednesday night, President Barack Obama announced that he would create his own commission via executive order, but that body will not force any decisions until after the November elections.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Why Washington is Broken? (by Mike Allen, Politico)
Senate Rejects Deficit Commission (by David Rogers, Politico)
Conrad, Gregg Vow to Continue Fight on Debt-Reduction Panel (by Tony Romm, The Hill)
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