WASHINGTON — As expected, three highly ideological alternatives to the House GOP budget plan failed on Wednesday afternoon, including the “Back to Work” budget from Rep. Keith Ellison’s Congressional Progressive Caucus.

None of these budgets — from the liberal Progressive and Black Caucuses, as well as from the conservative Republican Study Committee — were expected to get anywhere close to enough votes to advance, but were brought to the floor by the House’s most liberal Democrats or conservative Republicans anyway. The House will vote on the main Republican budget plan, as well as the Democratic substitute, later this afternoon.

Ellison said Tuesday that he was trying to build support for the Back to Work Budget, which had gotten more praise from liberal pundits than plans offered by other Democrats. The bill failed 84-327 and was underwater with Democrats (102 of which voted against the plan). Six more members voted for the bill this year than last.

The House also voted down a version of the Senate Democratic budget, which should pass in the upper chamber later this week.

Democrats tried to procedurally trick Republicans into approving the highly-conservative Republican Study Committee budget — 171 members voted “present,” essentially declining to have their votes count in the final tally, meaning the bill only needed a majority of the up or down votes to pass. The final vote was 104 to 132 (Democrats tried such a trick last year and nearly succeeded, so Republicans were more prepared for this time around).

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry

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3 Comments

  1. Mr. Henry, what is your definition of “ideological”

    And what makes the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget plan “highly ideological”? If in fact it were the only budget plan actually oriented toward the welfare of this country and the ordinary folks in it, would it still be “highly ideological”? If not, it seems there are some facts you need to examine, and some arguments you need to sustain, before describing it that way.

    1. What?

      I guess tax and tax and tax with spend and spend and spend is not ideological?

      1. Well, I understand “ideology” to mean a system of ideas

        that is the foundation for action. “Tax and tax and tax with spend and spend and spend” (as you describe it; I would call it “strong collective action to ameliorate the deep market failure and resulting malignancies in our economy before they are fatal”) is an action. It is founded on an ideology, but it is not an ideology.

        To get to the point: What Mr Henry means by “highly ideological,” I suspect, is that the Grand Muftis of Centrism find it to have a certain unpleasing odor and wish it therefore to be carried quickly elsewhere. And the Grand Muftis of Centrism find it to have a certain unpleasing odor because the ideology that underlies it is a fair and decent society in which those who play by the rules have opportunities and choices. This is in contrast to the budget plans that do have the right fragrance, because they are structured to consolidate the rents appropriated by the better folks over the past 12 years and to repair the debt/deficit on the backs of those who don’t gavotte at the Grand Mufti balls. In other words, they’re all ideological, it’s just a matter of which ideology one prefers.

        And the other point: The economy necessarily has private and public elements. The private economy drives productivity and creativity. The public economy addresses the market failures of the private economy. If you want smaller government and lower taxes, work for a private economy that is more fair and not so beset by market failure.

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