House Majority Leader Eric Cantor thinks we can pass a bill through just the House? Well, I wish we could. We’d have a public option now.
I want him to try this. I expect much laughter from the left as the bill is shot down in flames. But what if the Senate said, “OK, we’re just here to draw paychecks, you can govern the country.”?
I really think it would be good if it worked that way. Not because I like the GOP plans. They’re wrong, so very very wrong, on matters fiscal as well as ecological. But if we can’t pass useful bills with the GOP around to participate in gridlock, it isn’t helping matters anyway.
Anyone who expects the GOP not to intentionally run the government badly while Obama’s the head of the government is more optimistic than I. And when they’re actually in charge with no Dem to pass bucks to, they’re bad enough.
I’d rather they have their chance to screw things up royally, like the UK House of Commons, and then be swept out completely when things fall apart.
Eric Cantor is the House Majority leader, and before that Republican Whip. He’s been a congressman for 10 years. This has to have been taken out of context, because I can’t believe that he doesn’t know how a bill becomes a law. That’s so outrageous, he can’t have meant it the way O’Donnell is portraying it. It’s just not possible.
eta: Besides, aren’t there rumors that Boehner and Reid are close to a budget deal?
Interesting… I wonder how they’ll manage citing the Specific Constitutional Authority that grants the House the ability to create law without the Senate or President.
Ok, so, from that link, they realize that it’s just symbolism. Cantor doesn’t expect the bill to have any practical effect other than to embarrass the Senate.
They are shameless. They already spread the idea that cutting taxes raises revenue, that gay marriage will somehow undercut “traditional marriage”, that evolution is wrong, that the UHC bill contained death panels, and that Obama is a foreign born Muslim who has a deep seated hatred of white people.
It’s all about getting on the record. The Republicans want to have those no votes from the Democrats before the 2012 election.
It might be valuable or not depending on the economy or which way the political wind is blowing at the moment.
This is all a prelude to the House budget proposal for the next fiscal year which is coming in a few weeks, supposedly it will take a whack at entitlements.
I applaud the Republicans for finally getting serious about the budget despite the potential of getting slapped down by the voters in 2012.
O’Donnell is an ass and a big par of the problem. Does he really think Cantor doesn’t know how a bill is passed/ I would love to take him in the Way-Back Machine to the moment before he spouted this most recent hyper-partisan stupidity and see if he’d be willing to put his money where his big mouth is:
“So, whataya say, Larry. I just happen to have Eric Cantor in a room down the hall. Before you go public with your accusation how about we have a bet, you and me, for $1,000,000 on whether Cantor knows how a bill becomes law. So whataya say, big mouth, you in? Let’s shake on it and we can just walk down the hall. Larry. LARRY! Hey, LARRY!!! Where are you running to?”
Of course Cantor knows how a bill becomes law. And of course O’Donnell will spin anything he can to try to make Republicans look bad.
Listening to the audio, it sounds like the same bill. There are two possible interpretations of what Cantor said. The first is hopelessly naive. The second is hopelessly unconstitutional.
The Senate approves HR 1255, which would make HR 1 the law of the land if the Senate fails to act on the budget. Of course, this requires that the Senate approve HR 1255, which is completely ridiculous but possibly constitutional. It’s probably a stretch to think that the Senate can abdicate it’s duties like that, even willingly, but that’s one potential train of thought that they might argue. Still, it requires that the Senate willingly abdicate its duties and that the President sign the bill. Fat chance.
The Senate does nothing on HR 1255 and does not approve a budget. HR 1 then becomes the law of the land because the House passed HR 1255. This is completely ridiculous and isn’t how laws become approved by Congress.
O’Donnell is just repeating what Cantor says. If Cantor doesn’t want people saying he’s ignorant, he should say ignorant things. He doesn’t get a “I know the things I’m saying are wrong so they don’t count” pass.
What is wrong with the Republican Party that its leaders feel they have to feed lies to their supporters?
Before I go medieval on old anti-science Cantor, is there a precedent for language in a bill like this before? The one that attempts to say that the Senate can be ignored if they do not reply?
If true, that only makes it worse. He said what he said; so if you are right, the only other explanation is that Cantor is deliberately misleading his audience.
Yes, Lawrence O’Donnel is the bad-guy here. :dubious:
Look, as it happens, the people making up the right-wing in government right now are largely promoting delusional policies. Standing up for them when they do something stupid doesn’t do you a lot of good.
Cantor is either a moron or a liar. Blaming the guy pointing this out is nothing but an exercise in hyper-partisan, knee-jerk, blindly-ignorant apologetics.
I could respect that more. It’s not immoral to be stupid enough to believe stupid things. But I think it is immoral to lie to stupid people.
Look at the birther movement for example. Everyone with half a brain knows it isn’t true. But you’ll see Republican candidates for political office acting like they take it seriously.
Now if you take what they’re saying at face value, then you’d have to conclude that these candidates are complete idiots because only complete idiots would believe that nonsense. And being as complete idiots shouldn’t be running the country, anyone who is a birther is unqualified for office.
And that’s when the apologists step in. They’ll say the candidate doesn’t actually believe the birther nonsense - he’s too intelligent to believe it. But he pretends he takes it seriously so that the real idiots who actually are dumb enough to believe birther nonsense will vote for him.
You see it happening over and over: “We don’t really think gay marriage causes earthquakes” and “We don’t really think the health care plan will kill people” and “We don’t really think Obama is a Muslim” and “We don’t really think Jews eat Christian babies”.
Its is the faith of the Coyote. For it is written that, if he remain faithful, one day the Acme product will actually work, and he shall dine on roadrunner for evermore, amen.
I’m not sure about the senate, but there is something similar in the bill making process. The President doesn’t have to physically sign a bill to make it into law. Inaction = action. If it sits on his desk for too long (and Congress is in session), it’s the same as him signing it into law.
Again, I don’t think that’s how the Senate works (in fact, I’m just about positive, I just don’t know whether it’s been tried before). I do know the Senate has a lot of House bills they don’t act on; they don’t act either for or against, they just sit there.
This is just general info, I’m not commenting on Cantor one way or the other.