House Republicans again abused their rules, this time for the "principle" that tax cuts are never irresponsible.
The House has been considering a rules change that would encourage the Senate (where the rule has already passed) to offset both new spending increases and new tax cuts with spending reductions in other areas. The rule, called "PAYGO," was in force through most of the nineties, and was a moderate contributing factor to Clinton's unprecedented surplusses.
Yesterday the House voted on a version of the legislation that has already passed the Senate. The legislation failed on a tie vote, 209-209, but only after Republicans "flogg[ed] the House Rules.". House Republicans held the vote open 23 minutes longer than was allotted for it and coerced Republican moderates into switching their votes. They did the same thing in forcing through the Medicare legislation.
“Today, after holding a five-minute vote open for 28 minutes, Republicans ‘defeated’ a Democratic Motion to Instruct conferees on the budget to adopt the Senate’s bipartisan pay-as-you-go rules, requiring both spending increases and tax cuts to be offset elsewhere in the budget. Republican leaders in the House have demanded that such rules apply to spending only.“A unanimous Democratic Caucus was joined by 11 Republicans in voting for this Democratic Motion. Seven other Republican Members cast ‘yes’ votes before Republican leaders, trying to stave off an embarrassing defeat, twisted their arms and convinced them to change their votes. [Steny Hoyer, Press Release 3/30/04]
The non-binding rule doesn't even apply to the House, but Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Fla) still argued: "Now is not the time to make it easier to raise taxes,...[Adopting a] half-baked, cockamamie, crazy scheme to deal with this issue is nuts." Republicans want the PAYGO rules to apply only to new spending programs, not to tax cuts; the Washington Post notes that the only "principle" at stake is "making certain that tax cuts can be enacted and extended without any procedural hurdles..."