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“Bipartisan” budget secures only 38 votes in 435-member House

Posted by B. Daniel Blatt at 4:46 am - March 29, 2012.
Filed under: 112th Congress,Media Bias

You do gotta wonder the lengths to which the headline writers at Yahoo! go in order to make House Republicans seem extreme.   Last night, caught this headline on the company’s homepage: GOP-run House easily rejects bipartisan budget:

The House voted decisively late Wednesday to reject a bipartisan budget mixing tax increases with spending cuts to wring $4 trillion from federal deficits over the coming decade.

The 382-38 roll call paved the way for Republicans to muscle through their own, more stringent budget on Thursday, a measure that would blend deeper spending reductions in safety-net programs for the poor with a plan to dramatically overhaul Medicare.

38 votes in a 435-member House?  Let’s say the plan’s Republican author Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio (who crafted the plan with Tennessee Democrat Jim Cooper) voted for the bill and for argument’s sake assume that everyone else who joined him was a Democrat.  Thus, no more than 37 Democrats voted for the bill.  There are currently 190 Democrats in the House, meaning that at least 153 members of that caucus either voted against the bill or didn’t vote.

Since 12 members didn’t vote, that means at least 141 Democrats voted no.  By a margin of greater than 3-to-1, House Democrats rejected the bipartisan measure.

Now, to be sure, Yahoo!’s headline is accurate, but skewed to reflect poorly on Republicans.  Why not say that Democrats overwhelmingly rejected a bipartisan budget?  That’s also accurate, but reflects poorly on the Democrats.

Note also the language of AP writer Andrew Taylor (who wrote the article quoted above); he tries to make it appear House Republicans are forcing through a draconian budget.  (Wonder if he or his colleagues used similarly language to describe how the White House and Democratic leaders muscled Obamacare through Congress, a plan which would dramatically overhaul our nation’s health care system.)

Here’s a story that Yahoo! apparently didn’t see fit to include in its headlines:  ”SMART LEGISLATION: Obama budget defeated 414-0.”

That’s right, the president couldn’t secure one vote, not one single vote — even from a member of his own caucus — for his own budget.  Seems to paint a picture of a president out of touch.

UPDATE:  Over at the Corner, Yuval Levin provides “the House vote counts for the different budget proposals taken up yesterday and today“:

  1. House Budget Committee (Ryan) budget: Passed 228-191
  2. Democratic substitute budget: Failed 163-262
  3. Republican Study Committee budget: Failed 136-285
  4. Congressional Black Caucus budget: Failed 107-314
  5. Progressive Caucus budget: Failed 78-346
  6. Cooper/LaTourette (Simpson-Bowles) budget: Failed 38-382
  7. Obama budget: Failed 0-414


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    11 Comments

    1. Passing any sort of budget in the House is a futile effort as long as the Senate is run by that senile idiot from Nevada.

      Comment by V the K — March 29, 2012 @ 5:59 am - March 29, 2012

    2. House Has 38 Bipartisans; Rest Are Evil

      38 House Members Do the Right Thing

      Sinister Forces Destroy Bipartisan Effort

      Cheney Heart Transplant Affects House Vote

      Obama on Sensitive Mission; House Sandbags Him

      White Supremacist Vote Carries House

      Obama and 38 Apostles Stand Alone in House Vote

      Comment by heliotrope — March 29, 2012 @ 9:17 am - March 29, 2012

    3. As a Nevadan I second V the K ‘s desription of my senior senator.

      Comment by Burninghiram (Piper) — March 29, 2012 @ 11:05 am - March 29, 2012

    4. And if I could spell “Description” I could rule the world

      Comment by Burninghiram (Piper) — March 29, 2012 @ 11:06 am - March 29, 2012

    5. Well, you have to remember that Yahoo is run by the same libtards as the HuffPo.

      Bias? What liberal media bias?

      Regards,
      Peter H.

      Comment by Peter Hughes — March 29, 2012 @ 11:48 am - March 29, 2012

    6. Hi Dan,
      I think this was really bipartisan–it was a bipartisan rejection… :) But deeper in the article:

      the House rejected the president’s plan 414-0.

      Now that is bipartisan!

      Comment by Cas — March 29, 2012 @ 3:34 pm - March 29, 2012

    7. Passing any sort of budget in the House is a futile effort as long as the Senate is run by that senile idiot from Nevada.

      You’d like to see Harry Reid step down tomorrow then? Fine with me. Then you’d most likely get the next Democrat in line for the job of Senate Majority Leader who I seem to recall is… Chuck Schumer of New York. So I suppose it would be all sunshine and rainbows for you then would it? Yeah, careful what you wish for there.

      I think you meant to say “as long as the Democrats control the Senate”. Next time, you might want to say that.

      Comment by Serenity — March 30, 2012 @ 3:14 am - March 30, 2012

    8. V the K,

      You have been trapped, chastised and hog-tied by Serenity. You are being parsed over the little stuff and ignored in terms of the big picture. Serenity is set on “quibble” and mole hills are major battlegrounds.

      Comment by heliotrope — March 30, 2012 @ 9:26 am - March 30, 2012

    9. What are the major battlegrounds here? Your barrage of bad puns? It’s a battle between good comedy against the American onslaught, I’ll give you that.

      To be serious, if I am to weigh in on the various budget proposals, the main thing I’d want to hear (in their own words) is some congresscritters about why they voted the way they voted on these proposals. I’d especially like to hear from some Democrats (any Democrats really) why all of them voted against Obama’s budget. I really am curious to know what could have been so utterly awful about it that no one would vote for it.

      Comment by Serenity — March 30, 2012 @ 10:32 am - March 30, 2012

    10. Pomposity, you yourself have stated that your only reason in coming to this blog is to antagonize and to troll.

      If you think I’m enjoying this, I am. A lot. No matter who wins the next election, everyone else in this thread will have multiple reasons to hate them. As for me, I stopped caring about two months ago. Makes very little difference to me either way, so I intend to antagonize all of you as much as possible and have some fun.

      Comment by Serenity — November 5, 2011 @ 6:40 am – November 5, 2011

      Therefore, V the K need prove nothing. You have stated that your only purpose is to anatagonize, so no one need review or take your statements seriously or as any demonstration of intelligence. Your goal is to pick fights, so anything you state need only be taken as proof of your own irrational hatred and bad faith.

      Comment by North Dallas Thirty — March 30, 2012 @ 11:00 am - March 30, 2012

    11. Serenity,

      I can only give a calculated guess that the Democrats looked at the Obama budget and decided they did not want to run in November on increasing the deficit by $3.5 Trillion.

      Congressmen are vote counters and political calculators first and foremost. If the Obama budget went down 414-0 (and it did) you can bet the poison pill in it was big enough for even Maxine Waters to see.

      Comment by heliotrope — March 30, 2012 @ 11:30 am - March 30, 2012

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