Git Er Done

Congress stepped up and passed President Obama's budget last night.

From the Washington Post.

Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly embraced President Obama's ambitious and expensive agenda for the nation yesterday, endorsing a $3.5 trillion spending plan that sets the stage for the president to pursue his most far-reaching priorities.

Voting along party lines, the House and Senate approved budget blueprints that would trim Obama's spending proposals for the fiscal year that begins in October and curtail his plans to cut taxes. The blueprints, however, would permit work to begin on the central goals of Obama's presidency: an expansion of health-care coverage for the uninsured, more money for college loans and a cap-and-trade system to reduce gases that contribute to global warming.

The measures now move to a conference committee where negotiators must resolve differences between the two chambers, a prelude to the more difficult choices that will be required to implement Obama's initiatives. While Democrats back the president's vision for transforming huge sectors of the economy, they remain fiercely divided over the details.

There is no agreement, for example, on how to pay for an overhaul of the health-care system expected to add more than $1 trillion to the budget over the next decade, nor is there consensus on how to spend the hundreds of billions of dollars the government stands to collect by setting limits on greenhouse gas emissions and forcing industry to buy permits to pollute. Those issues will be decided in committees where lawmakers have begun the torturous work on the specifics of Obama's broad plans.


"Democrats in the House and, I think, the Senate are shoulder to shoulder with the president in trying to make the big decisions we need to make in this country," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). But, he said, "Hammering out the details will require everyone to roll up their sleeves."

But all was not great on the Democratic front as Evan Bayh joined Ben Nelson in voting against the President's budget. Now this might seem as just electoral posturing but on closer examination that doesn't hold up. Steve Benen notes:

I've heard some see this as an act of political cowardice on Bayh's part, but I think that's wrong. Obama carried Indiana. There are many Senate Democrats in more vulnerable states who voted "yes." Bayh just made a decision of conscience and principle to stand with Mitch McConnell and Jim DeMint on the most important domestic policy vote of his career.

I think that's right, and I'd add one key detail. Just yesterday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, effectively conceded that Republicans won't go after Bayh next year. "We have a sort of priority list," Cornyn said. "He's down on that."

Bayh, in other words, represents a state that supported Obama in November and he knew that no matter how he voted of Obama's budget, his re-election is all but assured in his home state.
Bayh didn't have to worry about impressing conservative voters back home; he didn't have to worry about fundraising; he didn't have to worry about a Republican opponent back home using this budget vote against him. Bayh was free to vote however he pleased.

And given all of this, Bayh still sided with a right-wing Republican caucus against the Obama White House.

Honestly I think I know the answer and it is this, Evan Bayh is the Democratic version of Mark Sanford in the Senate. He is making decisions right now not based on what is good for the country, but what will be good for his Presidential aspirations in 2016. He probably believes that if he shores up his conservative cred by voting against items that he knows will pass anyway, he will look more attractive when its "his turn" to run. But he is making the same mistake that the Republicans are. This is not your father's country anymore. As President Obama has said before, the grounds are shifting under the conservatives' feet. Evan Bahy is going to end up looking just as unappealing as Eric Cantor or Bobby Jindal by the time its all over with and for what? Just so he can feed his own ego? I think maybe its time to try to primary his self serving ass so he gets the message loud and clear. Its time for Democrats to be Democrats and if they don't like it cross the damn aisle. Otherwise we will end up letting the fringe of our party take it over just like the Republicans have just in the name of having more seats in Congress. I am personally not inclined to endorse that notion.