Time to sit back and get caffeinated…the Senate’s in session for the long haul today as it prepares to vote on the budget proposal released earlier this month — and the 400-plus amendments that go along with it.
The Senate budget proposal, which was introduced by Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.), is the first proposal that the Democrats have released in four years. Critics of Murray’s proposal argue that the plan doesn’t actually balance the federal budget and still leaves the nation with an additional half-trillion dollars of debt.
For his part, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) only expects to hear a small number of the potential amendments when the chamber votes on the bill this evening.
“We’re not going to do 400 amendments,” Reid announced on the Senate floor Friday morning. “The average that we have on these ‘vota-ramas’ is between 25 and 35, and so everyone should understand that’s about where we should wind up.”
It should be noted that the majority of the 400+ amendments were filed by Senate Republicans and call for the repeal of Obamacare.
Reid’s ‘voto-rama’ comes less than 24 hours after the Senate rejected the House budget proposal drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), 40 to 59. Ryan’s bill, which would balance the federal budget within ten years, passed in the House earlier Thursday along party lines.
Among the Republicans voting no on the House budget were Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas. Paul had previously introduced his own budget plan that would balance the budget within five years without the tax increases that would have been necessary in the Ryan plan. Earlier Friday Cruz introduced an amendment to repeal Obamacare to balance the budget, however his amendment failed on the floor by a vote of 45 to 54.
Congress is legally required to approve a budget for fiscal year 2014 by April 15th. With the president now two months (and counting) behind on producing a budget proposal of his own, and the House and Senate still far apart in creating a budget, it shouldn’t surprise anyone if the 2014 budget isn’t ready until 2015.
