Posted on 12/10/2014 5:54:23 AM PST by cotton1706
The House of Representatives is a large body with diverse opinions. Without structure, nothing could get done. In order to both have debate and amendments while also not dragging processes on forever, legislation brought to the floor of the House of Representatives is accompanied by a rule.
That rule sets out the parameters for debate, timeframe for debate, and amendments to the underlying legislation. Legislation rarely goes to the floor of the House of Representatives without a rule. Killing the rule, which is voted on before the legislation, kills the underlying legislation.
Often, members of congress will vote in favor of the rule to get legislation to the floor of the House of Representatives, but then vote against the legislation itself. They enable the legislation to get to the floor, but are often promised that once the legislation gets to the floor, there will be enough votes from the other party to pass it that these members can vote no.
It is a con job. Members of Congress vote for the rule to ensure legislation gets to the floor. The votes are then lined up to pass it without those members’ votes. But for them, the legislation would have died. And now they can say with a straight face they opposed it even though, had they opposed the rule, the legislation would have died.
The House Republicans are going to do this with amnesty. They have loaded up a piece of legislation that is almost two thousand pages long. The legislation will spend a trillion dollars and will fund President Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty. There are most likely not enough Republican votes to pass it because it betrays Republican principles.
But John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi have enough Democrats on board to pass it that it does not matter.
(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...
What does matter is the rule. Democrats will not support the rule. The minority party never does. The question becomes whether there are enough Republican votes for the rule. If your Republican congressman votes for the rule, that congressman is enabling passage of a continuing resolution that spends massive amounts of money and pays for President Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty.
Call your congressman today and tell him to oppose not just the continuing resolution, but the rule as well. Defeating the rule is key and far too many members of congress put party loyalty ahead of the nation when it comes to supporting these rules.
So the keystone of your strategy is a government shutdown?
Erick “vote for the R” Erickson is as complicit as John Boehner.
That is what is required.
You seem to advocate making sure your party comes out unscathed.
/johnny
Vote sales/trading.
Look at the results of the last election - shutdown worked well!
If the Republicans had any guts, they could easily blame shutdown on the lying rat Obama.
I agree. By going along with these continuing spending resolutions, the House has relinquished its ability to use its power of the purse strings. Whether they did it of their own accord or whether they were duped into it by the dems, they're stuck in it for the time being. Shutting down the government is not the way to use the power of the purse strings.
Hopefully the House will get its act together in January and start passing individual appropriations bills. Then they can use their power effectively.
The keystone of Obama’s strategy is a government shutdown. And as president, he cannot be prevented from doing it, by any Congress which refuses to be a rubber stamp.That’s life in the big city.
No one has mentioned this fact: there will be no important legislation passed by Congress in 2016, an election year. The House is getting ready to pass a CR that will take us thru 2015. The Republicans are throwing away the power of the purse for the next 2 years. The CR that takes us to Sept 2015 must be stopoed.
This whole issue will become small change if oil keeps falling as Wall Street will then be looking to stick it to the taxpayer on their COLOSSAL derivative losses (trillions).
Shutdown or closing up (whole agencies) is coming no matter what the pubbies or dimwits do or don’t do. The States will be on their own to survive.
Sadly, to cure Washington, DC corruption, a financial Tsunami is needed because our 535 cannot act in the BEST interest of their country anymore!
“So the keystone of your strategy is a government shutdown?”
I don’t have a strategy, but the way to stop the current legislation is to prevent the rule from being passed. Then they would have to amend it.
But to answer your question, who in this country would notice at all if the government was “shut down” from December 12th to January 6th?? Most of the government will be either off or working with skeletal staffs anyway, except maybe for the post office, which will function as normal. Checks will still go out, etc. (because God forbid the parasites don’t get paid). The Congress itself is taking off the rest of the year from this Friday to January 6th. So who are we kidding.
“If there are enough votes to pass the bill, how can there not be enough votes to pass the rule? Does the rule require a supermajority???”
No. But just like cloture in the senate, conservatives can defeat the bill by defeating the rule, because as the article said, democrats don’t vote against the rule (though I suppose they could).
The point is to not let these congressmen hide behind procedural tactics, to get legislation passed while pretending to be against it.
mark
It’s the same as when the democrats got republicans to help them get cloture in the senate. Boehner may indeed get it passed, but having to do that with the help of democrats weakens him as a leader. And that task should be made as difficult as possible, while at the same time exposing those that want to have it both ways.
“But to answer your question, who in this country would notice at all if the government was “shut down” from December 12th to January 6th??”
Who are you trying to kid? You seriously can’t believe that no one would notice. Everyone with a TV set would be bombarded with videos and reports of hapless government workers unable to buy Christmas presents for the kids or the legions of starving homeless who won’t be receiving their federally funded Christmas dinner.
Would those stories be true? Of course not. But, as Mark Twain said: “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
“Look at the results of the last election - shutdown worked well!”
That is a myth fostered by those whose only desire is to shut down the government. Do some research. See what the Republican approval ratings were after that shutdown. Now why should the republican’s first action once in power be a government shutdown.
Do so more research and name some Republicans that campaigned on shutting down the government. I’ll save you the trouble. None did. They all campaigned on ‘No Government Shutdown’. So why should their first action be to break their promise? They need to do what they said they would do and get the economy going again.
If the Republicans had any guts, they could easily blame shutdown on the lying rat Obama.
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