Well, I guess I missed the scheduling because Harry Reid held the budget votes tonight and all but five Republican senators contracted gonorrhea. The five hold-outs were Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and, finally, Rand Paul of Kentucky who offered his own plan. Here are the roll calls for the four budget plans:
Paul Ryan plan: 40-57, gonorrhea.
Rand Paul plan: 7-90, balances budget in 5 years.
Pat Toomey plan: 42-55, balances budget in 10 years.
President Obama’s original plan: 0-97, made obsolete by new proposals in March.
Here are the nihilists who voted for Rand Paul’s plan: Tom Coburn (R-OK), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Mike Lee (R-UT), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rand Paul (R-KY). No wonder Sen. Coburn dropped out of the Gang of Six budget negotiations. Nice of McConnell to show a little bluegrass solidarity.
So, what have we learned? As I predicted, not much. We learned that Dick Lugar and Orrin Hatch are more afraid of losing a primary than the general election. We learned that John Barrasso, Bob Corker and Roger Wicker feel invulnerable to a Democratic challenge. We learned that Lisa Murkowski is still pissed off at the Tea Party. And we learned that Scott Brown and Olympia Snowe don’t want to ask New England voters to support them after voting for something about as popular as a venereal disease: gutting Medicare and Pell Grants to give tax breaks to rich people and corporations, while actually increasing the cost of health care and the short-term budget deficit.
What do these votes do for us on the campaign trail. First, these votes show the Republicans’ true colors, and those colors are not popular. This hurts the GOP’s brand up and down the ticket. Second, it gives us an opportunity to threaten both Hatch and Lugar if they get past their primary challenges. Third, it gives us a strong rationale for candidates who might run in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Wyoming, even though those states are not otherwise promising targets. Fourth, it makes Brown and Snowe more vulnerable to a Tea Party primary challenge. Fifth, McConnell’s vote for both Ryan and Paul’s plans makes it possible to hang this radicalism around their leadership’s neck.
We don’t have to demonize these votes. They speak truthfully for themselves. These are not the priorities of normal men and women. They are the priorities of ideologues who do not operate with or respect basic empirical evidence. They can only succeed where they deceive or arouse the kind of fear that shuts down normal cognitive thought. We must use everything at our disposal to destroy this movement before it destroys our institutions, our retirement and medical security, and our quality of life.
