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Senate Votes Down 5-Year Balanced Budget Plan

By: conservativerock5 (Diary)  |  May 16th, 2012 at 06:58 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Today we saw which Republicans understand free market economics and our looming debt catastrophe, and we saw which Republicans are intent on continuing the spending ways of Washington. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky had introduced a budget that would balance in 5 years, offer structural reform to entitlement programs, eliminates several federal departments, and would implement a 17% flat tax, all without making dangerous cuts to the military. The complete budget can be seen here: http://campaignforliberty.com/materials/RandBudget.pdf

The bill was strongly supported by FreedomWorks and The Cato Institute.  It was defeated 83-16, with 1 not voting.

The few usual leaders for fiscal sanity supported this plan, among them Senators Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, Tom Coburn, and Ron Johnson. Not surprisingly, establishment favorites and vice-presidential frontrunners Marco Rubio and Ron Portman voted against the bill. Of course, they were not the only Republicans to vote against it. This vote is a sign that we need more fiscal conservatives/libertarians in the Senate as soon as possible. Hopefully Ted Cruz, Deb Fischer, Kurt Bills, and others will be reinforcing the conservative core.

For visuals of the budget impact had it been enacted, here is a graph:

http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/sites/default/files/PaulObamaBudget2.jpg

Also, it is easy to visualize comparison that to the Ryan Budget, which would take till past 2040 to budget. Medicare will reach insolvency by 2024; Social Security will have solvency problems by 2033. Of course even before that, our credit rating will continue to drop. Foreign holders of debt will start to demand their money, and the debt purchasing by the Federal Reserve present its own set of problems. If the excuse of some Republicans is that they prefer to vote for the Ryan Budget, that is not a valid excuse.

Here is the vote breakdown: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00100#position

YEAs —16
Barrasso (R-WY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Enzi (R-WY)
Hatch (R-UT)		 Johnson (R-WI)
Lee (R-UT)
McConnell (R-KY)
Moran (R-KS)
Paul (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)		 Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
NAYs —83
Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Baucus (D-MT)
Begich (D-AK)
Bennet (D-CO)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Brown (R-MA)
Burr (R-NC)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Coons (D-DE)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)		 Franken (D-MN)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hagan (D-NC)
Harkin (D-IA)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lugar (R-IN)
Manchin (D-WV)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)		 Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Portman (R-OH)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Rubio (R-FL)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Snowe (R-ME)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Toomey (R-PA)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Warner (D-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wicker (R-MS)
Wyden (D-OR)
Not Voting – 1
Kirk (R-IL)

Contact your Senators and let the know that you demand a balanced budget!

 

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COMMENTS

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  • Dave_A

    5 years is way, way too fast. And I’m going to guess – as it’s a Paul budget – that must of the cuts come from the wrong places (Defense, Intellegence, etc)….

    Ryan’s budget uses a more reasonable time frame.

  • commonsenseobserver

    I think it received more votes than both the Lee and Paul budgets. I think that it has a time frame of 8 years, which would place the budget on course to be balanced by 2020, earlier than the Ryan budget, but not as quickly as the Paul or Lee budgets.

  • APA Guy

    The dollar would firm up…especially since the currency it is matched against, the Euro, is set to sink like a rock. That means commodities priced in dollars – like oil – would similarly sink in price.

    It’s common-sense economics…but then again, I don’t expect the D.C establishment to give a rip. Solving a colossal problem means they can’t whine about that colossal problem in the months leading to Election Day.

    And so it goes…

  • Flagstaff

    This is really stupid.

    I can accept various bills to achieve some of the goals of the unlamented Obamacare. As long as they destroy it and start over.

    But what is the point of not supporting this? They would know it wasn’t going to get out of the Senate, so why not make a statement even if they didn’t like some of it?

    Was this a shot across Ron Paul’s bow? Call off your terriers if you want Rand to succeed? I can almost guarantee that’s what the Paulindromes will be saying as soon as they think of it.

  • garfieldjl

    I will give kudos for Rand Paul actually suggesting a potential solution though.

    I will also point out that Senator Kirk from Illinois had been hospitalized due to a serious health issue (I think it was a stroke) a while back, not sure if he is back in Washington DC yet, so he has a valid excuse to not vote one way or the other on this.

    It is also surprising that McConnell voted in favor of this, anyways I don’t know what all was in Rand Paul’s proposal, so I’m not going to accuse any Republicans that voted against his plan of not being serious about dealing with our debt problems until I have more information.

    I’m not surprised the Democrats voted enmasse against it, I don’t know what it is (maybe something in their drinking water), but Democrats that go to Washington often start going off the deep end into irrational liberalism.

  • Dave_A

    would smash the economy into little bitty pieces…

    House values would drop further.

    Wages would drop

    Meanwhile everyone would still owe the same amount of debt…

    And BTW, balancing the budget wouldn’t do much to change the value of the dollar – the money supply would still stay the same size….

    We can reduce the rate of inflation, but REVERSING IT – deflating – is economic suicide.

  • Dave_A

    Rand’s failure is required as well as his father’s, for safety’s sake.

    Their ideology is simply that dangerous, it must be stomped out…

    No matter who we have to primary him out with, come the end of his term.

    He has to go. The disease has to be cut out once and for all….