It was a very big f****** deal, as Vice President Biden would say. The massive omnibus bill failed to be brought to a vote in the U.S. Senate and died. Now a continuing resolution will keep the government running into the new year. The message from the last election has been heard. Politicians were told, in no uncertain terms, to stop doing business as usual. They were told to get some common sense about them and stop with the over the top spending.
This is a big win for the GOP.
The omnibus bill was laden with earmark spending to buy votes from politicians and then from their constituents. Democrats were cheering, Republicans were opposing. The one barrier in the way? Republican committee chairmen appropriating earmarks in the bill to entice Republicans to go along. That strategy failed and the few Republicans who originally indicated they might vote with the Democrats in favor of the omnibus felt the heat and heard the message. Republicans stood united and a few Democrats came along, too. Senate Majority Leader Reid did not have the votes to pass it and did not bring it to the floor.
The Democrats were unable to end the session as it began.
The 111th Congress began with an $814 billion stimulus that blew out the federal balance sheet, so we suppose it's only fitting that the Members want to exit by passing a 1,924-page, $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill. The worst Congress in modern history is true to its essence to the bitter end.
Democrats have had 11 months to write a budget for fiscal 2011, which began on October 1.
This is a big win for the country.
In January, as the new Congress gets down to business, a budget will finally be drawn up with Republicans in the majority of the House of Representatives, the purse strings of the federal government.
I heard an opinion piece on NPR recently. The speaker was declaring the word of the year as "no". Seems this guy didn't appreciate that the minority party in Congress, the Republicans, were using that word to stop what they considered bad legislation, thus blocking the agenda of the President. The speaker was an avowed Obama fanboy and didn't quite understand the action. He didn't understand that it is the job of the opposition party to block bad legislation. He didn't understand that there are, in fact, clear differences between the political philosophies of the two parties.
Maybe the NPR guy didn't understand that there are clear differences between the parties because somewhere along the line, over the course of the last decade or so, Republicans did too much of going along to get along. Republicans didn't always stand united against bad Democratic policies. Now, thanks to a very vocal and unhappy population in the country, Republicans have come back to reality. Democrats will exploit weakness within the GOP and strong unity is the path to victory.
The NPR guy no doubt was happy for the Democrats to be the naysayers when they took over control of Congress in 2007 and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were more than happy to deny legislative victories of former President Bush at every opportunity. Maybe NPR guy has a short memory.
To Republicans I say, embrace the "party of no" label during this administration. It's a big f****** deal.
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