Not a single Republican in the House voted for the stimulus package. And guess what? No one gives a crap what the House Republicans think. They wanted to prove that they could hold their caucus together but that means nothing unless they can bring Blue Dogs along with them. Only eleven Democrats defected on this vote. Rush Limbaugh hopes Obama fails, and now the entire House GOP is forced to hope for the same.
Update [2009-1-28 19:22:11 by BooMan]: Aah. I think I have this figured out.
CNN reported that about 30 Republican House members wanted to vote for the stimulus but were convinced to make this a unanimous rejection of ‘Pelosi’s bill’.
However, this is not the final bite of the apple for the House Republicans. The House version has to go to conference and be reconciled with the Senate version. At that point, the House will vote again on the final version of the bill which will then be signed by the president and become law.
So…those 30 Republicans will have an another opportunity to vote for the stimulus bill and two years from now, when they are up for reelection, no one is going to care that they voted against the stimulus today.
Why do Boehner and the other leaders want today’s vote to be unanimous? Because they still want to extract concessions in the conference. They want to bitch and moan about Pelosi’s bill. In the end, I suspect that a couple dozen Republicans will vote for the final stimulus bill. But they sent a message today that they have discipline.
The real action, however, is still in the Senate, and the Senate Appropriations Committee has already signed off (with four Republicans voting with the majority) on their version of the stimulus.
