Reid defeats Reid bill. Tell me we're not being played for suckers.

[grahamhgreen]

[onenote]

1. are you referring to Reid's no vote on cloture?

Because if you are, it only illustrates how little you know and understand of Senate procedure.

[grahamhgreen]

7. Yes. Enlighten me.

I did not think the vote that just occured, was a vote for cloture.

[11 Bravo]

12. It was a procedural vote, allowing him to re-introduce the measure at a later time.

[onenote]

23. It was a cloture vote on Reid's bill

As expected, it didn't get 60 votes. After the vote ended, as is frequently the case in these situations, Reid (as majority leader) switched his vote to Nay so he would have standing to ask for reconsideration. The idea is to keep his bill alive as the vehicle onto which the eventual compromise could be crafted. It also gave Democrats in the Senate an opportunity to vote for a bill (even if only on a cloture motion) that would raise the debt ceiling.

[Autumn]

2. Sucker sucker sucker

we are all suckers.

[CakeGrrl]

3. You just aren't getting the game. Now the so-called "Obama/McConnell" bill

has to pass BOTH Houses.

Think it will?

[Misskittycat]

4. It's a procedural necessity for him to eventually vote nay on the bill.

It keeps the process open, so that the eventual "deal" can be folded in as an amendment to the Reid bill.

[grahamhgreen]

9. The deal that's even worse than the Reid bill?

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. How so?

Explain.

[grahamhgreen]

14. This is the deal that includes the vote on a BBA, and the 'cat food dozen' special committee?

Still is cuts only, and no one will release an itemized cut list?

[Ruby the Liberal]

17. Um, no. It was a cloture vote to end the filibuster/debate

on the existing Senate bill.

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. Here's how the BBA thing has evolved

Look at the before-and-after:

BEFORE (in the Boehner Bill): Six month increase of the debt ceiling; the ceiling six months hence CAN ONLY BE LIFTED if a Balanced Budget Amendment has already passed the House and Senate and been sent to the states. In this scenario, PASSAGE of the BBA is a condition precedent to the debt ceiling being raised in December of this year.

AFTER: 18 month increase of the debt ceiling; revisiting the debt ceiling NOT contingent on PASSAGE of the BBA. The Senate - the current Senate - must merely agree to bring the BBA to the floor for a vote. No passage of the BBA is required.

So, essentially, the BBA was considered a condition precedent before, and is now merely a weak election year argument.

It takes quite a bit of sophistry to paint the BEFORE and AFTER of the BBA is anything but a Democratic win.

On the so-called "catfood commission," the triggers are where the money is:

The commission is made up of six Dems and six GOPers. That means - unless you're willing to write off the six Dems as something other than Dems, the recommendations WILL INCLUDE REVENUES. Now, the House and Senate CAN REJECT the RECOMMENDATIONS, but that will result in across the board cuts, including, as we're seeing severe cuts to defense and ONLY provider side cuts to Medicare. There would also be cuts to programs prized by the GOPers, who will be forced to either vote for revenue increases or see their beloved defense and home district programs cut. So, we either get automatic revenue increases, or REAL DEFENSE CUTS that go beyond Reid's "projected" savings from winding down the wars. We also get to see the GOP anti-revenue crowd try to explain in their districts why they chose tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires over federal road projects in their district.

This is MUCH better than the Reid plan, precisely because the triggers are actually effective at breaking the GOP ideological bloc.

[leveymg]

21. "only provider side cuts to Medicare." All Medicare is provider-side. It doesn't pay the recipient

directly - disbursements go to doctors, pharmacists, nursing homes, etc. So what are you talking about? Isn't a cut to Medicare a cut to Medicare?

And, yes, some Democrats are more equal than others, as we saw in the HCR and Bush Tax cuts continuation debacles. I don't trust the concept of dead-man trigger or the mandatory cuts package that would come out of such a Politburo-style Central Committee.

[alcibiades_mystery]

25. There's certainly a good

argument to be made that requiring providers to lower fees for particular goods and procedures is essentially a cut in benefits, if providers refuse to do so, or if they drop out of the medicare program altogether. There's also a good argument to be made that they have massively inflated fees and they can take the haircut without losing their obscene profits, or that somebody else will move in to fill the void if they do drop out. Favoring the former rather than the latter is a matter of dispute, in any case. I'm happy to har the arguments there.

As for the Democrats on the committee, I don't think it's a matter of trust. It's a matter of mechanisms. Now, if you say, "well, I don't trust the Democrats to argue for revenue generation," then you might as well pack it in. You certainly aren't going to see revenue generating moves pass the GOP House unless they are incentivized to pass those measures. If you have a better way to move them in that diection in the next six months, feel free to spell it out. As it stands, the triggers will either require them to raise revenue (assuming the Democrats on the committee insist on revenue increases - and they are completely incentivized by the mechanisms in place to do just that), or allow massive cuts in the very government spending they DON'T WANT to give up. It's not about trust at all. We can't evaluate such things based on our gut feeling about what might happen in the future (what might happen is infinite). We can only evaluate it in terms of whether a mechanism has been put in place that favors good results.

[elleng]

22. Thanks, al. Good explanation.

[dsc]

5. He voted no so he could bring up the bill again in a motion to reconsider

which can only be brought up by a voter on the winning side.

[Davis_X_Machina]

8. Don't distract me with facts, dammit....

...this is DU. I had a perfectly decent rage on, too.

[grahamhgreen]

11. Thanks for this little known fact.

But does he intend to bring it up as an even worse compromise?

[Ruby the Liberal]

15. Its actually not that little known and no, he can't change it

By voting no, it allows him to reintroduce it in is existing form.

[dsc]

19. actually I think he can change it

though in a two step process, one bring it back up as is, two amend the bill.

[Ruby the Liberal]

24. Amending it is a separate vote, AFTER cloture.

His "no" on Cloture only allows him to bring it back to Cloture as is.

If he could amend it before bring it up for cloture, then you would be correct in that 'he could change it', but that isn't how it works.

[Mass]

6. Learn how cloture votes work before criticizing on Reid's vote.

This said, the compromise is worrisome.

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. They're all against us! They're all against us!

The paranoid style in American politics...

[grahamhgreen]

18. Oops, I stand corrected

I did not think this was a cloture vote.

Still...

[TheKentuckian]

16. Cloture maneuver here, happens all the time.

We are being played because we are being set up to lose at every path and refuse to even discuss a reasonable outcome, even for arguments sake.

Our folks are playing to lose but to maintain denialability so that the game can continue and we can lose more.

[JI7]

26. no, people just need to learn how congress works

[jwirr]

27. IMO they are playing for time until the last minute.