Budget

Obama To Draw Contrast With GOP In Budget

Brian Beutler | February 13, 2012, 5:43AM

President Barack Obama

Though required by law, White House budgets are largely political documents that tend to become more and more political as reelection time gets closer and closer.

This year's will technically be no different -- but the long-term stakes will be much higher than they usually are and clarifying that fact for voters will be key to President Obama's appeal in 2012.

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Contraception

McConnell: GOP Will Fight To Let ANY Employer Deny Birth Control Coverage

Sahil Kapur | February 12, 2012, 11:47AM

Not satisfied with President Obama's new religious accommodation, Republicans will move forward with legislation by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Sunday.

"If we end up having to try to overcome the President's opposition by legislation, of course I'd be happy to support it, and intend to support it," McConnell said. "We'll be voting on that in the Senate and you can anticipate that that would happen as soon as possible."

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Mitch McConnell

McConnell's Revisionist History: Congress Gave Obama Everything He Wanted!

Sahil Kapur | January 31, 2012, 5:36AM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has embraced the argument that President Obama was able to pass every bit of his legislative agenda in his first two years thanks to large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. It's intended as a counterpoint to the President's re-election strategy of attacking the congressional GOP as do-nothing obstructionists. But it's also a revisionist history of the 111th Congress, during which McConnell more than any other Republican in Washington stood athwart Obama's agenda to great effect.

The White House has "been trying to pretend like the President just showed up yesterday, just got sworn in and started fresh," McConnell declared Sunday on CNN's State of the Union. "In fact, he's been in office for three years. He got everything he wanted from a completely compliant Congress for two of those three years... We are living in the Obama economy."

This isn't a new claim for McConnell, but it's audacious even by Washington's lax standards. It was McConnell, after all, who led Senate Republicans in serial filibusters -- a record-setting number -- successfully thwarting large chunks of Obama's agenda.

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State Of The Union

State Of The Union: Obama's Point-By-Point Romney Refutation

Brian Beutler | January 24, 2012, 10:55PM

President Barack Obama

President Obama's State of the Union address was premised on two political bets: that there's a broad national appetite, spanning conservative and liberal ideologies, for certain populist reforms; and that Republicans in Congress are too deeply committed to opposing his agenda to back those reforms along side him.

His speech was peppered with the sorts of proposals that play well across the country. But after executing a three year plan of partisan opposition to his full agenda, Republicans can't possibly support them -- and that puts them on the steep side of an election Obama is framing while Republican presidential hopefuls tear each other down.

It was also sharp-elbowed. It read in a way as a series of critiques of the GOP's most prominent rhetorical attacks on Democratic priorities, and as a piecemeal rebuttal of the talking points his most likely general election opponent Mitt Romney has levied against him in a bid to shore up support among Republican base voters.

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Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett: I'll Pay Up If Republicans Do The Same

David Taintor | January 11, 2012, 5:45PM

It has been a few months since billionaire Warren Buffett called on President Obama to "stop coddling the super-rich" and raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

His "Buffett Rule" sparked some backlash, especially from Republicans, who suggested that Buffett should cut the U.S. government a check if he's so eager to pay his fair share of the nation's debts. Well, Buffett tells TIME magazine that he's willing to do just that. He's willing to match one-for-one any donation by a Republican member of Congress -- except for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, he gets three for one.

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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Obama Misses Key Window For Empowering Top Consumer Watchdog

Brian Beutler | January 3, 2012, 12:53PM

President Barack Obama

Today was the day that legal experts and many aides in both parties thought President Obama would provide a recess appointment to Richard Cordray, his nominee to administer the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The rationale is quite technical, but here's the bottom line: one reading of the Constitution and of executive branch administrative law suggest that today is Obama's last day to recess appoint any of his languishing nominees, at least until the next time the Senate leaves town several weeks from now.

But a senior administration official who would not be quoted told reporters at a White House background briefing Tuesday that Obama will not take advantage of that opening.

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Barack Obama

BREAKING: House Republicans Cave, Agree To Two-Month Payroll Tax Cut Extension

Brian Beutler | December 22, 2011, 3:51PM

John Boehner

A top Senate Democratic aide says House Republicans have privately offered up the terms of their surrender on the payroll tax cut, pending sign off from their notoriously unwieldy caucus.

As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) suggested Thursday morning, it will involve House Republicans passing a temporary extension of the payroll tax cut (and unemployment insurance and reimbursement rates for Medicare physicians) in exchange for Senate Dems agreeing to a formal conference committee to work out a year-long extension of all items.

The temporary extension won't be identical to the one Senate Dems passed. It will differ in very minor technical ways. House Republicans have already rejected the bipartisan Senate compromise bill, so they'll have to draw up essentially the same bill from scratch, pass it in the House and then have the Senate readopt it by unanimous consent.

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Payroll Tax Cut

It's Unanimous: All Stakeholders Say It's Time For House GOP To Cave On Payroll Tax

Brian Beutler | December 22, 2011, 1:42PM

President Barack Obama

If there's one thing that House Democrats, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans, political strategists of both parties and the White House all agree on, it's that House Republicans need to cave in and end the payroll tax stand off.

Speaking at the White House Thursday, President Obama gave a sloppy wet kiss to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's suggestion that House Republicans fold, with only the thinnest of covers. Essentially, all of the principals involved, except House Republicans, now agree that House Republicans should do what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) proposed all along -- pass the Senate's stopgap bill to extend the payroll tax cut (and other expiring provisions) for two months with the promise that Democrats will work with Republicans on a year-long agreement.

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Harry Reid

Reid To Boehner: McConnell's Right -- You Should Fold

Brian Beutler | December 22, 2011, 12:20PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says John Boehner should grab the life-line Mitch McConnell just tossed him.

"I agree with Senator McConnell and the many other Republicans who have spoken up in recent days that the most reasonable path forward is for the House of Representatives to pass the Senate's bipartisan agreement immediately, to make sure that middle-class families do not wake up to a tax increase on January 1st," Reid said in an official statement. "Once the House passes the Senate's bipartisan compromise to hold middle class families harmless while we work out our differences, I will be happy to restart the negotiating process to forge a year-long extension.... Now, it is important that we now hear from Speaker Boehner in light of Senator McConnell's comments."

Boehner and GOP payroll tax negotiators are meeting as of this writing to mull McConnell's proposal -- we should know what they decide very soon.

John Boehner

Boehner Spox: Not Biting On The Senate Bill -- Yet

Brian Beutler | December 22, 2011, 11:39AM

U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) speaks to the press during his weekly press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on December 1, 2011.

In response to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who on Thursday urged House Republicans to pass a temporary payroll tax cut extension, Speaker John Boehner's office says they're not ready to go there.

"The House and Senate have two different bills, but the same goal," says Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith. "That is why we believe, as Senator McConnell suggested, the two chambers should work to reconcile the two bills so that we can provide a full year of payroll tax relief - and do it before year's end."

There's room here for House Republicans to follow McConnell's advice, but not right away. If Reid appoints Democratic senators to negotiate a full-year payroll tax cut, and Boehner responds by passing the Senate's two-month compromise, he has no assurance that the year-long deal will be reached by December 31. It could easily drag out until February.

So Boehner's not biting yet.

Payroll Tax Cut

McConnell To House GOP On Payroll Tax: It's Over

Brian Beutler | December 22, 2011, 11:05AM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) conducts a news conference along with fellow GOP members on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on November 30, 2011.

As gently as he could, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) just called on House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to cave and pass the Senate's payroll tax cut compromise.

But make no mistake: McConnell has essentially pulled the rug out from under his counterparts in the House as the political price Republicans are paying for reneging on the deal struck with Democrats has steepened dramatically.

Read the full statement below, but the key is here:

"Leader Reid should appoint conferees on the long-term bill and the House should pass an extension that locks in the thousands of Keystone XL pipeline jobs, prevents any disruption in the payroll tax holiday or other expiring provisions, and allows Congress to work on a solution for the longer extensions."

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Payroll Tax Cut

How The Payroll Tax Fight Descended Into Chaos

Brian Beutler | December 21, 2011, 5:45AM

John Boehner

The fight over renewing the payroll tax cut into next year has escalated into a multi-front political war, both between Republicans and Democrats, and within the Republican party itself.

But lost in the gamesmanship and the arguments about process, hypocrisy, and leadership are the issues at stake.

So let's review.

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Payroll Tax Cut

Standoff: A Guide To The Ongoing Fight Over The Payroll Tax Cut

Brian Beutler | December 19, 2011, 1:25PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Barack Obama

At a Capitol press conference Monday morning, House Speaker John Boehner told reporters he expects his members will kill the bipartisan, Senate-passed, two-month payroll tax cut bill. Instead he said Republicans will insist that Senate Democrats return to Washington and hash out the differences between that package, and the partisan one-year bill the House GOP passed a week ago.

That's setting up a new round in the ongoing fight over how to prevent that tax cut -- and other expiring policies like emergency unemployment benefits, and reimbursement rates for Medicare physicians -- from expiring.

Where we go from here depends on Boehner making good on his threat. To that end House and Senate Democrats, along with key Senate Republicans -- who voted for the compromise measure, and whom Boehner is hanging out to dry -- are pressing the House GOP to follow through on the deal.

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John Boehner

Boehner Faces Key Test After GOP Mutiny Over Payroll Tax Cut

Brian Beutler | December 19, 2011, 6:01AM

House Speaker John Boehner with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the foreground.

Long, long ago - well, on Friday night to be exact - it looked like a two month extension of the expiring payroll tax cut was on a glide path to passage in both the House and Senate -- preventing an automatic tax increase on 160 million workers on January 1 and giving Republicans and Democrats until the end of February to negotiate an extension through the end of 2012.

But as soon as the deal was announced, House GOP aides privately speculated that the deal wouldn't fly with the majority of their caucus despite buy in from Speaker John Boehner, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, all of his deputies and the vast majority of Senate Republicans.

Sure enough, they were right. The deal collapsed in spectacular fashion early Saturday. After passing the Senate with an overwhelming majority, Boehner presented the deal to his members, many of whom -- including Boehner's top lieutenants -- rejected it. Sunday morning, he appeared on NBC to declare it dead on arrival.

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Payroll Tax Cut

Top Republican: Payroll Tax Cut Is Terrible Idea I'll Support With Enough Enticements

Brian Beutler | December 16, 2011, 3:23PM

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)

In a Bloomberg interview airing this Sunday, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) -- chairman of the House Republicans' campaign committee -- says he thinks cutting the payroll tax for another year is a terrible idea, but one that he can support if paired with enough other goodies.

"I didn't change my mind," Sessions told host Al Hunt. "It is a bad idea. But when you combine that with something else - for instance, when we voted the extension of the tax cuts - when you mirror that with something that's a job stimulus, an economic growth package, then it's a good deal."

Sessions gets a bit more specific, suggesting that the Keystone pipeline or similar measures will be required to get his vote.

HUNT: I mean, what's the bottom line? Not what you - you know, you desire, but what's the bottom line?

SESSIONS: Job growth. How about Keystone pipeline?

HUNT: So you won't support anything that doesn't have Keystone pipeline in it?

SESSIONS: I won't support something that does not show job growth and the development.

This hints at a dynamic that's been largely missed in this debate.

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Payroll Tax Cut

McConnell Demands Keystone XL In Any Payroll Tax Agreement

Brian Beutler | December 16, 2011, 1:12PM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) conducts a news conference along with fellow GOP members on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on November 30, 2011.

This post was updated at 1:30 p.m.

It's gut check time for Congressional Democrats on the payroll tax cut bill.

Regarding that legislation, Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell emails me with the following statement: "The Leader will not support any bill without the Keystone XL language as part of the agreement."

House Speaker John Boehner is also insisting that he'll amend any Senate-passed payroll tax cut bill to add the Keystone provision to it, if it's not already in there. So Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama now have a choice: stick to their guns and object to the provision -- at the risk of allowing the payroll tax cut (and unemployment insurance and the Medicare "doc fix") to expire? Or give in to the GOP.

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Payroll Tax Cut

How The Payroll Tax Deal Is Likely To Play Out

Brian Beutler | December 16, 2011, 11:41AM

U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) speaks to the press during his weekly press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on December 1, 2011.

With a government shutdown averted, the final item on the Congressional agenda before the year's out is to finalize legislation to renew the payroll tax, extend unemployment benefits, and temporarily fix the Medicare payment formula so that doctors don't take a huge pay cut on the first of the year.

Senate Dem and GOP leaders say they're nearing agreement on such a package, which will be offset with budget cuts and savings, but not with a surtax on millionaires, which Dems finally, officially dropped Thursday night.

So here's the plan now: Later today, the House will pass legislation to fund the government, averting a shutdown. House members will leave town for the weekend while the Senate hammers out its final compromise -- which barring a snag, could pass this weekend with little fuss.

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Payroll Tax Cut

Dems, Republicans Negotiate On Two Tracks To Avoid A Government Shutdown

Brian Beutler | December 15, 2011, 1:37PM

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)

Democratic and Republican sources say that a two track process will likely resolve the current standoff on Capitol Hill -- the key questions now are about timing and choreography.

House Republican and Senate Democratic appropriators are close to a deal to avert a government shutdown and fund federal programs through the end of September.

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Payroll Tax Cut

Boehner Outlines Path Forward In Government Shutdown Fight

Brian Beutler | December 15, 2011, 12:21PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Barack Obama

At his weekly Capitol briefing, House Speaker John Boehner outlined a way around the current impasse in Congress that will result in a government shutdown if it's not resolved by Friday night. And it could alleviate Dem fears that Republicans are trying to jam them with partisan legislation that would renew the payroll tax cut and extend unemployment benefits, but with a significant number of poison pills thrown in.

"There's an easy way to untangle all of this," Boehner said in introductory remarks. "First I think Democrats should join Republicans and sign the conference report [on appropriations legislation] to fund our government. House and Senate appropriators have done their jobs. There's an agreement on a bill that would keep the government open. They've worked out all the details and shook hands, and the bill's done. It's bipartisan, it's bicameral, Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate are both ready to vote on this."

Here's part two:

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Government Shutdown

Reid, McConnell Trade Tactics On Senate Floor Over Looming Government Shutdown

Brian Beutler | December 14, 2011, 11:49AM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

We're at that point again. The one where Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell try to prove they're not precipitating a government shutdown.

On the Senate floor Wednesday morning, each leader pulled a couple confusing procedural levers designed to prove the other is acting in bad faith.

To recap, last night the House passed partisan legislation to renew the expiring payroll tax holiday, replete with payfors and add-ons that led all but 10 Democrats to reject it. Democrats in the Senate don't want Republicans to leave town for the holidays and jam them with that bill so they're playing a bit of hardball. They've raised objections to a number of riders and provisions in separate legislation to fund the government, which will shutdown Friday night if appropriations aren't passed. If Republicans skip town, they're shutting down the government. And Reid is using this leverage to force Republicans to deal on Democrats' terms on both bills.

So what happened this morning?

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Payroll Tax Cut

House GOP Passes Payroll Tax Cut Bill Obama Has Threatened To Veto

Brian Beutler | December 13, 2011, 6:53PM

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

Despite loud warnings from Senate Democrats and a veto threat from President Obama because of poison pills within the text, House Republicans Tuesday passed legislation to renew a 2 percent payroll tax holiday and extended unemployment benefits of one more year.

The bill passed 234 - 193, with 10 Democrats joining with the Republicans and 14 Republicans pitching in with the Dems.

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Payroll Tax Cut

GOP Filibusters Dem Compromise Payroll Tax Cut

Brian Beutler | December 8, 2011, 3:22PM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) talks with a reporters in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. on November 30, 2011.

Another pair of dueling bills failed in the Senate Thursday as Democrats keep up the pressure on Republicans to break ranks and support a payroll tax cut for workers paid for largely by imposing a modest surtax on income over $1 million.

Though most GOP senators oppose extending and deepening the current payroll tax cut, set to expire January 1, 2012, enough of them back the idea that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell paired the Democrats' bill with competing legislation that proposes paying for the tax holiday by shrinking the federal workforce by 10 percent, freezing federal pay, and means-test federal support programs, including Medicare, for wealthy Americans. Before the votes the Obama administration issued official policy statements announcing support for the Dem bill, and opposition to the GOP's.

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Payroll Tax Cut

McConnell Swats Down GOP-Sponsored Bill To Raise Taxes On Millionaires

Brian Beutler | December 6, 2011, 3:50PM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) conducts a news conference along with fellow GOP members on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on November 30, 2011.

Awkward!

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell brought a bunch of rank and file members to the microphones with him after a conference lunch Tuesday to discuss consumer finance regulation. But one of those Republicans -- Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) -- is introducing legislation to fund economic growth measures with higher taxes on millionaires and oil companies. And reporters took the opportunity to ask McConnell to address her plan publicly, in her presence.

After trying futilely to pass the mic to Collins, McConnell said pretty unequivocally that his caucus will overwhelmingly reject her plan.

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Mitch McConnell

McConnell: Not My Job To Prevent Firefighter, Police Layoffs

Igor Bobic | October 23, 2011, 10:46AM

Speaking with Candy Crowley on CNN's "State of the Union," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y.) defended his opposition to President Obama's now dead jobs bill, saying that the federal government should instead focus on decreasing regulations.

Senate Republicans, joined by three conservative members of the Democratic caucus, defeated that $35 billion package last week, which aimed to hire or retain teachers and emergency responders. And Democrats will surely trumpet their recalcitrance as we head into 2012.

Yet McConnell spun the issue in a different light, telling Crowley that saving emergency responders from unemployment shouldn't be a federal responsibility because we can't afford "to be bailing out states."

"I certainly do approve of firefighters and police," said McConnell. "The question is whether the federal government ought to be raising taxes on 300,000 small businesses in order to send money down to bail out states for whom firefighters and police work. They are local and state employees."

But, as Crowley pointed out (and as did Harry Reid on the floor of the Senate last week) polls show that 75 percent of the public supports raising some form of tax on millionaires to pay for aid to teachers, police, and firefighters.

Jobs

Senate 'Comity' Breaks Down Over Duelling Jobs Bill Votes

Brian Beutler | October 21, 2011, 11:36AM

Did another Senate tradition come to an end this week?

Not exactly. But something very rare did happen and Democrats are using it as a cautionary tale, to warn Republicans not to get too brazen.

Thursday night, Democrats filibustered a Republican-backed provision of President Obama's jobs bill, because the GOP proposed to pay for it by slashing $30 billion worth of funds for federal programs. Republicans forced the vote to build a counter-narrative that Democrats don't want to work with them on jobs legislation, even bits of Obama's own plan.

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Harry Reid

Republicans Find One Piece Of Obama's Jobs Bill They Like

Brian Beutler | October 20, 2011, 5:52PM

Senate jousting over President Obama's jobs bill will continue late Thursday or early Friday.

The leaders of both parties have each teed up test votes on separate provisions from the bill, for opposite political reasons. For Democrats, the relentless push for votes on pieces of the bill is meant to build a narrative voters understand: Dems support legislation that will create jobs; Republicans don't. Dems support paying for jobs bills with tiny tax increases on millionaires; Republicans support those millionaires.

But two can play at that game.

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Barack Obama

Mitch McConnell Unloads On President Obama Over Jobs Bill (AUDIO)

Brian Beutler | October 18, 2011, 4:43PM

Spend enough time around Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and you'll learn a few things about him. He's the most disciplined GOP leader on the Hill, and one of its savviest. His devious parliamentary tactics have been a cornerstone of the GOP strategy to thwart the Democratic agenda, of which he was the key architect.

But he rarely loses his cool.

That's why his acid-tongued attack on President Obama Tuesday came as such a surprise -- and, perhaps, an indication that Obama's campaign against the GOP for blocking his jobs bill is working.

Here's the audio, from McConnell's weekly Capitol briefing with reporters.

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9-9-9

GOP Senators Dance, Dance, Dance Around 9-9-9

Brian Beutler | October 18, 2011, 3:41PM

Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain

As Herman Cain has climbed in the polls, lawmakers and other GOP presidential candidates have had to contend more seriously with his ideas. One of the main attacks his opponents have leveled against his 9-9-9 tax plan is that it won't fly in Congress.

True story. Today's GOP leaders aren't willing to embrace the plan, which would wipe out the current tax code and replace it with a nine percent tax on individual income, a nine percent tax on corporate income, and a nine percent sales tax.

As noted here, here, and here, the plan has a lot of problems. It's deeply regressive. As businesses passed on the cost of their share of the tax to consumers, it would hit low and middle income earners exceptionally hard at a time when the economy desperately needs more, not less, consumption. And part of it's probably unconstitutional, at least as Cain envisions it.

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Jobs

Big, Bold And Balanced vs. Tiny, Tepid, Tilted -- Dems, GOP Do Battle Over Deficits, Jobs

Brian Beutler | October 13, 2011, 3:21PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Listening to Congressional leaders these days, it's easy to forget that over a year ago Republicans put the budget at the top of the legislative agenda, and swamped Democrats at the polls with a simple question: "Where are the jobs?!"

For better or worse those issues are now inextricably linked. By consensus, job creation measures will have to be paid for, and doing anything substantial to help the economy now will require passing a larger and more equitable package of deficit-reducing policies than Republicans ever wanted.

Thus, the imperatives of the moment are issues Democrats want to tackle -- both for ideological reasons and out of political necessity. Their roles have flipped, in other words, with Democrats demanding swift action on the economy and deficits, and Republicans slinking into the background on both issues.

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Harry Reid

Reid: Individual Jobs Bills To Be Paid For With Taxes On Millionaires

Brian Beutler | October 12, 2011, 2:14PM

Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Harry Reid (D-NV)

Now that Republicans have successfully blocked debate on President Obama's full jobs bill, Senate Dems plan to break it into pieces -- force tough votes for Republicans on issues they've supported in the past like infrastructure spending and payroll tax cuts. But all those things cost money or deplete revenues, and in this austerity-obsessed Congress, nothing will pass unless its paid for. So Dems will present the GOP with a stark choice: side with the unemployed or side with rich people.

At his weekly Capitol press briefing Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid explained that the cost of each jobs proposal will be offset "with the tax that the vast majority of the American people support. That is, taxing just a little bit people making more than a million dollars a year."

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Jobs

Dems Win Jobs Bill Fight -- But Expose Major Strategic Weakness Ahead Of 2012

Brian Beutler | October 12, 2011, 5:50AM

After an agonizing week of arm-twisting, and a vote that had to be held open for hours, Senate Democrats got their act together. But only barely.

A full 51 of them voted as a bloc Tuesday, not to pass President Obama's jobs plan or even to break a GOP filibuster of the bill, but simply for the proposition that the Senate should publicly debate the most pressing issue in the country.

That wasn't enough to prevail. Under the Senate's obscure rules, simply debating a piece of legislation often requires 60 votes. And two Dems -- Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and John Tester (D-MT) -- voted with all 46 present Republicans to block the debate from happening altogether. (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) also switched his vote to "no" at the last moment, but only as a procedural trick that allows him to bring the jobs bill up for another vote in the future.) But it was enough for the Dems to claim a partisan GOP minority is blocking meaningful action on the economy.

Indeed, that the vote failed was entirely expected. The point of Tuesdays vote was to allow Dems take a message to voters: With unemployment over 9 percent, Republicans unanimously snuffed out the the only bill on the docket that promises to significantly boost the economy -- without even allowing a debate on it.

"Republicans unanimously voted against our nation's economic health to advance their narrow political interests," charged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in a blunt official statement. "Republicans blocked a bill that would put nearly two million Americans back to work. And they voted against this job-creating bill despite previously supporting many of the ideas it contains, such as tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses."

But the outcome wasn't an unambiguous victory for Democrats. Though politically useful it exposed, in tortured fashion, the fundamental strategic incoherence that has defined the party since President Obama took office in 2009. Despite the simple nature of the proposition -- Should we debate a jobs bill? -- it took Democrats until the 11th hour to round up a bare majority support and avoid shooting the entire party in the foot. And that difficulty bodes poorly for the real, substantive fights -- over taxes, entitlements, the very shape of the country -- that lay ahead between now and the 2012 elections.

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Nuclear Option

GOP Incensed At Reid's 'Tyrannical' Hardball Tactic

Brian Beutler | October 7, 2011, 10:14AM

Harry Reid (D-NV)

As explained at length here, Harry Reid's Thursday night power play set a very narrow new precedent in the Senate. But it was a power play nonetheless. Setting aside its less-than-modest real impact, it required using the same "nuclear option" tactics Republicans threatened in 2005 during the fight over judicial filibusters. If in 2005 the GOP was threatening to detonate a massive H-bomb over a major city, last night Harry Reid set off a rusty old fission devise in the empty desert. Both nukes, very different impacts.

But Republicans are steamed. Steamed doesn't really even begin to describe it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was practically trembling in anger Thursday night. On Twitter, NRSC chairman John Cornyn (R-TX) called the move "tyranny". And a Senate GOP leadership aide sent me the following remark, suggesting Republicans will remember this whenever they take the majority.

"Democrats are remarkably short-sighted--they forget they'll be in the minority someday and will have to live with THEIR rules," the aide said.

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Harry Reid

Nuclear Option?! What Really Happened On The Senate Floor, And Why It Matters

Brian Beutler | October 6, 2011, 9:31PM

Did Harry Reid pull the nuclear option in the Senate Thursday night? That all depends what you mean by "nuclear option." Reid did succeed in changing the Senate's rules tonight, but in exceptionally narrow terms. And the only danger for Senate Democrats -- as with setting any new precedent -- is that an opportunistic future GOP majority will seize upon what happened Thursday as an excuse to make much bigger, broader changes to parliamentary procedure, perhaps even nixing the filibuster.

All day -- and really all week -- Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have been involved in a procedural jousting match. McConnell's goal has been to embarrass Democrats -- to force a vote of some kind on the jobs bill President Obama sent to Congress weeks ago, and watch it go down in flames. Reid's goal has been to thwart McConnell, and to call his own vote in the coming days on a modified version of Obama's bill with broader caucus support. That will help Democrats make the case that Republicans alone stand in the way of the American Jobs Act.

Mostly this was about positioning. McConnell wants a version -- any version -- of the Obama jobs bill to fail with bipartisan opposition. He wants to upset Reid's efforts to draw a sharp contrast between the parties over jobs. Knowing that Republicans will filibuster all versions of Obama's jobs bills, Reid wants to make it clear in the public mind that it's the GOP that's preventing a bold jobs package from moving forward.

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Mitch McConnell

McConnell Gets His Vote On Obama's Original Jobs Bill...Sorta

Brian Beutler | October 6, 2011, 1:17PM

Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Looks like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will get another round of useful jobs bill headlines, that once again obscure the real story.

Recall that on Tuesday, McConnell pushed Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to allow a vote on President Obama's original jobs bill -- no amendments, no real debate -- just a vote on whether to tack it on to the broadly bipartisan Chinese currency legislation the Senate's currently debating.

McConnell knew Reid was tweaking the bill, to coalesce party support for it. He knew that if Reid agreed to vote on the bill Obama sent to Congress, several Dems would defect from it, generating a series of unfortunate headlines for Democrats. And he knew that if Reid blocked the vote (which he did) it would generate a different series of unfortunate headlines for Democrats.

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Jobs

McConnell Vies For Headlines Over Obama Jobs Bill

Brian Beutler | October 4, 2011, 4:28PM

Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Harry Reid (D-NV)

Mitch McConnell just pulled a made-for-headlines trick on the Senate floor, challenging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to allow an immediate vote on President Obama's jobs bill -- not as a stand-alone measure, but as an amendment to the China currency legislation the Senate is currently debating.

Obama's been demanding that Congress pass his jobs bill day in and day out for weeks, so the tactic had an obvious allure. It wasn't done in the spirit of debating the jobs bill, or even giving it an up or down vote. It was to generate headlines like, "McConnell demands vote on Obama jobs bill" or "Reid blocks vote on Obama jobs bill." Or if Reid had allowed the vote, the headlines could've read "Dems Join Republicans In Rebuffing Obama Jobs Bill."

Pretty clever. But it's not the whole story.

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Mitch McConnell

McConnell: Congressional Gridlock Is...President Obama's Fault?!

Brian Beutler | October 4, 2011, 1:36PM

Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Here's a novel idea for congressional Republicans: faced with the blame for nearly three years of legislative gridlock, claim that the real fault lies with...President Obama?

Here's Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on the Senate floor Tuesday. "The second reason the White House didn't send these agreements up sooner is that the political operators over at the White House seem to believe that they benefit from the appearance of gridlock," McConnell said. "They're over there telling any reporter who will listen that they plan to run against Congress next year. Their Communications Director said as much to the New York Times two weeks ago. So that's their explicit strategy -- to make people believe that Congress can't get anything done.

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Harry Reid

Dems Seek Unity On Obama Jobs Bill...By Changing It

Brian Beutler | October 4, 2011, 12:54PM

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

The story Republicans in the House and Senate tell right now is that President Obama is traveling the country demanding Congress vote on his jobs bill when part of the problem is here in Washington, D.C. with his own party.

It's dead on arrival as far as Republican leadership is concerned, but it also lacks unanimous support among Democrats. And since the Senate is the one body Democrats control, that's creating a bit of dissonance. Obama says vote on the bill, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) doesn't have the votes, and, if he put it on the floor today, he'd probably lose a handful or more Democrats.

That would invite Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to reprise his oft-repeated line that the only thing bipartisan about President Obama's jobs bill is the opposition to it. And that's something Reid wants to avoid.

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Eric Cantor

Cantor To Obama: Let's Chop Up Your Jobs Act

Brian Beutler | October 3, 2011, 1:49PM

Hours after President Obama insisted both the House and Senate vote on his entire jobs bill, a top Republican says that's not gonna happen.

Asked by a reporter for a yes or no answer, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) says the jobs bill, taken as a whole, is kaput.

"The $447 billion jobs package as a package: dead?" the reporter asked.

"Yes," Cantor replied.

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Government Shutdown

Shutdown Fight Ends Quietly On Capitol Hill

Brian Beutler | September 27, 2011, 10:27AM

President Barack Obama meets with Republican and Democratic leaders

Word comes from the Democratic Whip's office that the House of Representatives will quietly extend government funding on Tuesday, and then again, for a longer stretch, when the House returns from recess next week.

No muss, no fuss. Though House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will lose a big chunk of his caucus on the vote, the fight, for all intents and purposes, appears to be over.

On the Senate floor Monday night, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the whole exercise a "fire drill [that] was completely unnecessary."

But a Senate Democratic aide suggests McConnell knew full well who'd caused the fire drill, and it wasn't Democrats.

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Government Shutdown

Reid: Obama Will Call House Back From Recess If Necessary Over Shutdown Fight

Brian Beutler | September 23, 2011, 2:55PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) with Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Charles Schumer (D-NY)

Harry Reid has an offer for John Boehner and Senate Republicans to keep FEMA's disaster relief efforts funded and avoid a government shutdown. It goes like this: Democrats will accept the House GOP's lower funding total disaster aid, if Republicans drop the extraordinary demand that funding recovery from natural disasters be offset with partisan budget cuts.

Republicans now say the only way to keep the entire government funded after September 30 is if Democrats agree to slash a successful manufacturing program to pay for disaster aid included in the House's federal funding bill.

Speaking for his caucus at a Friday press conference, Reid categorically rejected the idea disaster aid should be offset. After the Senate rejected that proposal on a bipartisan basis, Reid urged Boehner to sit down with himself, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to review his offer, in the hope of avoiding a government shutdown. And he said if House Republicans continue intransigently to demand that the Senate swallow their bill, President Obama will call the House back into session from its week-long recess.

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