Republicans think about voting against $1.3 trillion spending bill after voting for it

[babylonsister]

It's obvious they don't know WTF they're doing, same as it ever was.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/3/1754155/-Republicans-think-about-voting-against-1-3-trillion-spending-bill-after-voting-for-it

Republicans think about voting against $1.3 trillion spending bill after voting for it
Joan McCarter
Daily Kos Staff
Tuesday April 03, 2018 · 3:42 PM EDT


The temper tantrum the occupier of the Oval Office had over signing the omnibus spending bill has carried over, and he's found someone in Congress willing to encourage him in a fool's errand of undoing it by "forcing votes that would cut billions of dollars in spending from the bipartisan funding deal."

White House officials are working closely with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on the rescission package, said the sources. It’s not clear which programs could be targeted or when the House would vote, although the White House had targeted dozens of programs in Trump's 2019 budget proposal. The White House also proposed nearly $15 billion in budget cuts as part of last year’s hurricane relief package, which were never acted upon. […]

The White House is also weighing whether to send a proposal for a line-item veto to Congress, which has been declared unconstitutional in the past. Trump has demanded line-item veto power to cut out spending programs preferred by Democrats.

Trump threatened to veto the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending package before eventually signing it. But Trump warned that he would never approve another such deal, and he asked lawmakers to enact a line-item veto, despite the fact that it was struck down by the Supreme Court 20 years ago. White House lawyers are reportedly exploring ways to allow a new line-item veto to pass constitutional muster.

A rescission package is not out of the question—congressional rules allow it and in fact could be done with a simple majority vote in the Senate. But that would be putting all Republican members in the embarrassing position of having to say they voted against it after they voted for it. They'd also have to make uncomfortable and unpopular decisions about who to take money away from now.

And the line-item veto is nuts, and McCarthy is nuts for encouraging Trump on it, if that's what he's doing. Not only is it a transparent gimmick, it's not going to get the two-thirds majority votes in either chamber of Congress, nor the backing of three quarters of the states. Because that's what it would take after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected it a couple of decades ago—a constitutional amendment. It’s also possible that McCarthy is trying to butter up Trump just in case that rumor about Speaker Paul Ryan retiring is true, and he wants to position himself against Rep. Steve Scalise (R-SC), who is the one all the House Republicans talking about this are talking up.

But, hey, Republicans are currently considering wasting the rest of the session on a balanced budget amendment, so maybe they're throwing this one in, too. It's not like they've got anything better to do than cater to Trump's flights of fancy, right?

[leftieNanner]

1. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker???

Lordy! He's dumber than a box of rocks. Do you remember the video Rachel showed last year of him at a press conference speaking some odd foreign language that he pretended was English?? He went on a trip to "Hungria". He makes Sarah Palin look like a Rhodes Scholar.

Just when we think it can't get worse --- it DOES!

On Edit: I found the video!

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/the-more-we-learn-about-kevin-mccarthy...-537578051529

[Va Lefty]

2. Honestly, nothing these criminals do anymore suprises me