Cut, Cap and Balance Could Pass Senate

After having passed the House of Representatives this week, the Cut, Cap and Balance budget solution will be up for a cloture vote in the Senate on Saturday. The entirety of main stream media has already declared it dead – they may be wrong.

The bill is being taken up in the Senate today and a will see the preliminary vote on Saturday. A cloture vote is simply a vote to close debate. It allows for an additional 30 hours of debate should the cloture vote pass before a final Senate vote.

Cloture: The only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster. Under the cloture rule (Rule XXII), the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours, but only by vote of three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes. [1]

Americans are going to get at least a few days of debate on the Cut, Cap and Balance bill despite Democrat theatrics calling a vote on the bill “political theater,” a “waste of time,” and a “show vote”. They may get more. If the cloture vote fails, debate continues.

Is balancing the budget a “waste of time” or even a “scam” or “stupid” as Sen. Mikulski (D-Md) put it? Not all Democrats think so:

So while the cloture vote only closes debate, it will put pressure on Democrats and Republicans alike. First, cloture should happen and the heat must be turned up on Senators.

For Democrats, voters would have to let them know that a balanced budget is the mos-important thing the Senate can do. Had the Democrat-led Senate bothered to pass budgets the last 2+ years, perhaps they wouldn’t be where they are. Either way, this decision will have direct repercussions on our kids. We are no longer talking about what a failure to balance the budget will do to our grandchildren – failure has gone on too long.

For Republicans the message is simple: if they want to vote down Cut, Cap and Balance in favor of the Gang of Six failure of a proposal (not even a bill) to protect them with voters in the general election, they should be so informed that they won’t get that far. If they choose to abandon the future of America for fear of losing their seats, we will guarantee that they will – in February they will be replaced by fiscally-sound Republicans in the primaries.

When the bill comes up for a Senate vote is when the single American voter has the most power. Get a yes vote on cloture and then press for yes on final passage. Let’s call Obama’s bluff – veto this, Sir.

Phone numbers for all Senators can be found here:

https://senate.gov/

**Update 7/22 – Well, dingy Harry strikes again. Despite his promise to let it go to a roll call vote, he lead the Democrats in the Senate in killing the best hope for America’s future. The plan that would finally have put restrictions on Congressional spending.

Sources:

[1] https://www.senate.gov/reference/glossary_term/cloture.htm