House Republicans Unanimously Vote “No” On Obama Budget
Needless to say, Barack Obama doesn’t need the votes of any House Republicans to get his budget passed, but the unanimity of the House GOP in rejecting his agenda remains striking. The vast majority of House Republicans, of course, represent conservative districts so it’s no real surprise to see them acting like this. But there still are quite a few House Republicans who represent districts Obama won. Some of them, like Joseph Cao and Mike Castle represent districts that Obama won handily. When you add into the mix the fact that John Boehner really has no inducements at his disposal to offer to members, it’s a real testament to the success of the Club for Growth and others at inspiring fear of primaries into every single Republican member.
As Ezra Klein says, this tends to make you doubt that many Republicans are actually going to cooperate on health care.
16 Responses to “House Republicans Unanimously Vote “No” On Obama Budget”
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April 29th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
It appears Republicans only want to hoard tax revenues for themselves. This and other absurd conclusions brought to you by Yglesias.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
How about the 17 dems who voted against it? What was there problem?
April 29th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Joseph Cao has, at this point, become kind of a joke – he has no idea that his habitual statements that he wants to support a big Obama plan, followed by his habitual votes with the GOP minority, have ended his chances at re-election. Really, unless the Democrats nominate another criminal (and Cao only beat William Jefferson by 3 points!) the guy’s going to go down in a landslide.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
How about the 17 dems who voted against it? What was there problem?
Virtually all of them are from very conservative districts, mostly in the south but also such places as Idaho, and if they have too liberal of a voting record they’re just going to lose.
Which was kind of the point of Matt’s post. People like Cao and Castle could easily lose if they have too conservative a voting record, so it seems quite odd that they’re voting in lockstep on pretty much everything even though that may well hurt their reelection chances.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Nathan, did you have a point? I mean other than creating an imaginative (dishonest) rendering of Matt’s post? You know, the other day you were whining about conservatives being called stupid. You aren’t doing a good job of refuting the charge.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
How about the 17 dems who voted against it?
There was bipartisan opposition to the budget. That is, the people opposing the budget acted in a bipartisan manner.
The people for the budget acted in a partisan manner.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
[...] to offer to members, it’s a real testament to the success of the Club for Growth and others at inspiring fear of primaries into every single Republican [...]
April 29th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Which was kind of the point of Matt’s post. People like Cao and Castle could easily lose if they have too conservative a voting record, so it seems quite odd that they’re voting in lockstep on pretty much everything even though that may well hurt their reelection chances.
Or they think this budget is junk and voted their conscience.
Al, exactly.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
I think what we are seeing is the slow change of our political system from one with weak parties (where individual legislators break from their leadership quite frequently) and one with strong parties (where there is strong solidarity and breaking with your party brings with it risk of being booted out the next election). Already, the Republicans look to me like a party in a strong party system – they are pretty much voting lock step against everything the Dems put up. That wouldn’t bother me so much (since you expect the opposition to, um, oppose the government of the day), except for the fact that the Dems are still playing under the old rules, where lots of individual legislators say, “screw this, I’m voting against the party’s bill because it will help me come reelection time.”
This weird hybrid actually gives the Republicans a lot more power than either a pure strong or weak party system – under the strong system, Republicans would be powerless, because Dems would also vote as a block; under a weak, Republicans wouldn’t really have much power because about as many Republicans would switch sides as Democrats. But, with only Democrats switching sides, it’s a lot easier for Republicans to block legislation while claiming to be “bipartisan.”
April 29th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
“There was bipartisan opposition to the budget. That is, the people opposing the budget acted in a bipartisan manner.
The people for the budget acted in a partisan manner.”
So how could a yes voter have acted in a bipartisan manner? By voting against the budget, I guess. But wait…then all the yes voters would still be Democrats! The only solution would be for everyone to vote no, and then everyone’s bipartisan! Yay!
April 29th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
It would be nice if the GOP actually opposes expanding government funding of health care costs beyond the current 50% level!
But seeing how the GOP went ahead with the Medicare drug benefit, I think it is clear the AARP can call the shots with them.
OECD average doctor pay is half that of the US – if US health care becomes more socialized, we know who is going to get the “haircut”.
Only 40% of US primary care doctors now take new Medicare patients, since Medicare pays less, usually 20% to 40% less than private plans, and has the toughest paperwork. Medicare physician payment rates will be slashed 21% in 2010 under current law.
On the other hand, maybe we could let those doctors in Cuba that keep going to Venezuela immigrate into the US to help drive down physician prices (ducking to avoid Steve Sailer
April 30th, 2009 at 7:21 am
I’m still baffled that the GOP thinks this is a smart strategy. Not only does it make them look like a@@holes, it also simply underscores how completely irrelevant they are to the legislative process unless they are willing to work productively with the majority, at least some of the time.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:55 am
RE:Rethuglicans do something right once in a while: Good.
Mr. Econotarian,
Recently, I spent 20 minutes talking to an ex-nurse who’s skills are much better used now. Apparently, she and six other nurses at a top medical center have the job of altering the language of requests for Medicare payments because Medicare has this habit of outright denying coverage. They’ve found that if they gussy up the language describing symptoms that Medicare is more inclined to pay, so she and her ilk are responsible for “revenue capture” in the millions per year, making it sensible for her to parse instead of nurse. The best thing, however, was that she described how some booster had come to a meeting and sold her on the idea of single-payer health care. When I asked her how it was that one single payer (Medicare for all!) instead of many payers was a good idea, considering her experience with gov so far, I got a flat-line. She thought monopsony was a grand idea even though she was right in the heart of the storm. I guess what I’m saying with this little anecdote, is that MY and his tribe are not going have their minds changed about this stuff, because you can put some smart, dedicated pro deep in the s**t, but the harps and sunshine of Utopia are too seductive.
***Four days at least since MY has learned about “doc in a boxes” and still no mention of them. I guess a simple free-market fix for a lot of common maladies that could help the 40 million uninsured doesn’t interest the Utopians. Just like he won’t talk about cheap, effective, beloved DC vouchers and fake Keynesians.
This was a sloppy omnibus comment; I recognize that.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I know WAY more about health care than some dumb nurse, cuz I’m a libertarian.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Actually, it would only be those 17 Democrats who acted in a bipartisan manner. They bucked their party to vote with the other side.
The lockstep Republicans, on the other hand, acted in a purely partisan manner, as did most of the Democrats.
We have one party that includes members willing to buck their leadership, and one party that does not.
April 30th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I know WAY more about health care than some dumb nurse, cuz I’m a libertarian.
Nurses don’t study public choice theory or basic econ, which is why they don’t see that the actions of a monopsonist might be more oppressive than the actions of a large, gun-toting “buyer.”