Senate passes $410B budget with 7.7B in earmarks by voice vote after cloture vote of 62-35.

[flpoljunkie]

Interesting.

[vaberella]

1. That means more Repubs rejected it?! But they had the most earmarks.

I hope someone proves me right, so I can say at least they remain the party of "no." That or they're the party of 'Hypocrites with an exponent.'

[msongs]

3. MCcain voted FOR the bush wall street bailout $700 bil ....how bout this one? nt

[wryter2000]

2. I wonder which Republicans voted for cloture

Hmmm.

[vaberella]

9. What's cloture?! Oy..off to google.n/t

[wryter2000]

15. It's a vote to end debate

In the Senate you can hold a bill up by debating until the end of time. That's how they filibuster a bill. A cloture vote is a vote to end the debating, but it requires 60 votes to pass. In this case, there were 62 votes to end debate. At that point, they voted on the bill itself. That vote only needed a simple majority.

Just to be pedantic :evilgrin:, the "nuclear option" the Repugnicans threatened when we were in the minority was to change the Senate rules so that a cloture vote only would require a simple majority. That way, we couldn't filibuster their bills. They never did it, though.

[ProSense]

4. Cloture roll call

62-35

[flpoljunkie]

5. Thanks.

[vaberella]

10. Huh...about 7-8 Repubs voted for cloture. Interesting. n/t

[PM7nj]

6. Alexander, Bond, Murkowski, Shelby, Snowe, Specter, Wicker - AYE

Bayh, Feingold, McCaskill - NAY

Odd.

[TheBigotBasher]

7. Bayh, Feingold and McCaskill ???

WTF is going on there? I hope this is not what to expect over the next 4 years.

[Honeycombe8]

14. McCaskill? Susan Collins, who voted for the stimulus bill? I wonder why? nt

[CreekDog]

8. they probably want to take a stand against earmarks and higher spending

i think the explanation is "optics".

also since Obama is not directly associated with this budget, it allows them the safest route to criticize spending without taking on Obama.

how's that?

[vaberella]

11. Well both Bayh and Feingold publicly reprimanded President Obama already.

For this bill.

[ShortnFiery]

16. Bayh even starred on Greta's Faux news show.

:puke:

[vaberella]

17. Isn't he special? n/t

[Zynx]

12. As someone who studies public finance on a routine basis, complaints of pork

are just useless and actually obscure real problems in spending. There are huge programs, rather than these fringe things, that suck up tens of billions. Most pork items amount to quite little. We get pissed about them because sometimes they are really silly. However, compared to systemic ineffective programs and improper control on contracts, it pales in comparison.

[flpoljunkie]

18. Yet CNN's Ed Henry kept badgering Robert Gibbs about Obama signing bill with earmarks.

Give is a rest, Ed! Surely, you do not really believe that the 1.8% of the omnibus budget bill appropriations that are earmarked amount to a 'hill of beans.'

It's all about 'gotcha' for these pathetic cable nerds.

[PBS Poll-435]

13. Hmm...

Didn't Kent Conrad say that the votes just weren't there?