They were literally thieves in the night.
WASHINGTON - House Republicans sweated out a victory on a major budget cut bill in the wee hours Friday, salvaging a major pillar of their agenda despite divisions within the party and nervousness among moderates that the vote could cost them in next year's elections.
The bill, passed 217-215 after a 25-minute-long roll call, makes modest but politically painful cuts across an array of programs for the poor, students and farmers.
The victory on the deficit-control bill came hours after an embarrassing and rare defeat on a $602 billion spending bill for education, health care and job training programs this year. The earlier 224-209 vote halted what had been a steady drive to complete annual appropriations bills freezing many agency budgets.
OK, "spending bills" and "cutting bills" are different creatures. I was very confused when I first read this.
I envision a scene now where they approve the spending first, only to cut it. Gotcha.
The broader budget bill would slice almost $50 billion from the deficit by the end of the decade by curbing rapidly growing benefit programs such as Medicaid, food stamps and student loan subsidies. Republicans said reining in such programs whose costs spiral upward each year automatically s the first step to restoring fiscal discipline.
"This unchecked spending is growing faster than our economy, faster than inflation, and far beyond our means to sustain it," said Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa.
Well, Jim, I guess you have to ask yourself WHY the spending is growing, don't you? It's the unchecked growth of poor people under this so-called fabulous economy, you twit.
The budget plan squeaked through after an all-day search by Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt, R-Mo., to round up votes from reluctant moderates and other lawmakers uneasy with the bill.
House leaders now face arduous talks with the Senate, which passed a much more modest plan earlier this month. Negotiators face difficult negotiations over Arctic drilling, Medicaid and student loans, among other issues
Those changes and other promises won the votes of lawmakers who had earlier registered opposition to the bill, including James Walsh, R-N.Y., Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., and Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y.
Dammit, Vern. Here I was starting to think you might be one of the good guys.
The afternoon vote was the first time in 10 years the House has rejected a final House-Senate compromise on a spending bill and the episode exposed weaknesses in the GOP leadership team after former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was forced to step down from his leadership post after his indictment on money laundering and conspiracy charges.
Democrats were unanimous in opposing the one-year appropriations bill.
The companion deficit-reduction bill also drew unanimous opposition from Democrats, who objected to both cuts in programs for the poor and the fact that the deficit-reduction bill would increase the deficit when combined with a tax slated for a vote later that would extend tax cuts on capital gains and dividend income due to expire at the end of 2008.
Meanwhile, in the chambers of the other band of thieves, we've got a difference of opinion on the cuts for capital gains, and an interesting tax increase on Big Oil. Will we pay for that at the pump?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate approved a $60 billion tax cut bill on Friday that would impose a $5 billion tax on big oil companies and provide new tax breaks to help rebuild hurricane devastated regions.
The package, approved on a vote of 64-33, passed the Senate only after provisions extending reduced tax rates for capital gains and dividends beyond their 2008 expiration were dropped. Democrats and some moderate Republicans put up solid opposition to those provisions.
The overall cost of the legislation was reduced by a number of revenue raising measures, including an accounting provision that would raise about $5 billion from big oil companies by temporarily changing the way they value oil inventories.
The bill extends a number of tax breaks for business, education and savings that otherwise would expire at the end of the year. Among them is a $30 billion measure that would keep millions of taxpayers from paying the alternative minimum tax next year -- a tax originally intended for the very wealthy.
While the Senate bill omitted the measure to extend the 15 percent tax rate on dividends and capital gains, which had been backed by the administration, some Republicans have vowed to restore the measure later in the process.
The lower rate on investment income was the centerpiece of Bush's 2003 tax cut and is set to expire at the end of 2008. Unless Congress acts, the tax rate on capital gains would go to 20 percent and investors would pay regular income tax rates on dividends.
The tax legislation is part of a broader effort by congressional Republicans to continue Bush's tax cuts while trimming federal domestic spending to reduce deficits.
Democrats accused Republicans of putting too much of the deficit-cutting burden on the poor while giving generous tax breaks to the wealthy.
"Essentially, they've targeted the most vulnerable in our communities -- children, the aged, the blind and disabled -- for spending cuts that pave the way for tax cuts for the rich," said Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Republicans argue that the tax cuts will help generate economic growth.
So, where is all that economic growth, anyway? Oh, right. It helps the wealthy grow wealthier, and we call that "growth". I see. Those poor folks just have to wait for it to "trickle down" to them, or just take advantadge of all the wonderful opportunities for the disabled, the sick and the elderly that are out there. Why, all they have to do is get up and work for them, right? Oh, can't work? Well, too bad then. You must be lazy.
Bastards.