EconomicsUSA: Fed Budget Balance: House of Representatives fails to pass on split-lines vote

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The Hill email newsletter (Nov18,2k11)
Reposted here by EconoMix
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Balanced budget amendment fails in House 

By Pete Kasperowicz 


The House on Friday afternoon failed to approve a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
The House voted 261-165 for the amendment — a clear majority, but well short of the 290 votes needed to amend the Constitution. The amendment was supported by 236 Republicans and 25 Democrats, while four Republicans and 161 Democrats opposed it.

While a similar bill cleared the House with bipartisan support in 1995, most Democrats came out against the bill in recent days, with many pointing to the late 1990s as evidence that the budget can be balanced without a constitutional requirement.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday that the earlier success in balancing the budget prompted him to oppose the amendment this time around, even though he supported the proposal in 1995.
"We made it happen not with a balanced budget amendment, but because we had the will to do so, and by following pay-go rules," Hoyer said, referring to rules that require the cost of legislation to be paid for. Hoyer argued Thursday and Friday that much of the blame for the deficit should fall on Republicans who abandoned the "pay-go" principle when taking over Congress.

One notable GOP defection was House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), who offered the same reasoning for voting against it. "What I found ... is that we were able to balance the federal budget without touching that inspired document, the U.S. Constitution," he said.

The other three Republicans voting against it were House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas.).

The four GOP no votes were likely a sign that some Republicans were not happy with the decision to pick the more broadly supported amendment that would not require a supermajority in Congress to raise taxes in order to balance the budget.

Gohmert complained repeatedly this week that Republicans were looking at a tougher proposal that would have required a supermajority for tax hikes and also would have capped spending, but abandoned this language because only one Democrat supported it.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said earlier this week that a survey of Republican members found they "overwhelmingly" wanted to vote on the amendment without the tax requirement.

PoliticsUSA: Banks: House of Representatives passes bill regulating banks and finance, Senate mum

MarketWatch's Ronald D. Orol sends out this Market Pulse alert, "House approves sweeping bank reform bill" (June 30, 2k10, 6:54 p.m. EDT):

After making changes to appease moderate Republicans in the Senate, the House on Wednesday approved the most significant shake-up of the regulation of U.S. banks since the Great Depression by placing new restrictions on the nation's biggest banks, reining in the Federal Reserve and crafting a major new consumer-protection division for mortgage and credit-card products. The mammoth legislative package -- which passed 237 to 192 - moves the Obama administration one step closer to having a significant triumph in its efforts to reign in Wall Street after a financial crisis that shook the economy to the brink in Sept. 2008. The legislation, which is a combination of House and Senate bank bills, must still receive a filibuster-proof 60 votes to pass in the Senate. A Senate vote isn't expected until the week of July 12. The bill had almost no GOP backers.

Americans need some reform of lax regulation immediately, so let's hope that the Senate confirms, as this House version simply ratifies the negotiation results of a joint committee of the two Houses of Congress.  The Senate now needs to adopt the same text approved by its delegates on the joint committee, after approval by the Senate the bill becomes ready for the Prez's signature.

Senate support for the far-reaching bill remained in flux, however. The Senate was forced to delay its vote to mid-July, denying President Barack Obama a victory before Independence Day. Democrats struggled to secure the votes of a handful of Republican senators even after meeting their demands and backing down on a $19 billion tax on big banks and hedge funds.   Read more ...