Free Republic

The House on Tuesday will pass a resolution that will deem the GOP-passed budget resolution as passed for the purpose of setting budget targets as members work on FY 2013 appropriations bills. The so-called "deeming resolution" is included in a rule setting the terms of debate for a gun rights bill, H.R. 4089, which will also be debated on Tuesday. Republicans on Monday evening released a statement explaining why it is proceeding this way, and pinned it on the failure of the Senate to approve a budget for the third year in a row. "When the Senate refuses to act,...

On the first day of July, the House of Representatives passed a "budget enforcement resolution" that "deemed as passed" a $1.12 trillion budget. Thirty-eight House Democrats voted no, perhaps because they sense in this year of the Tea Party Movement it isn't good politics to engage in such a sham. But pass it did. More tricks from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that hide nothing but actually bring great clarity to the next four months. House Democrats might have thought they were deeming as passed a budget, but what they were really doing is deeming their defeat in November. ~snip~ Pelosi's...

Last night, as part of a procedural vote on the emergency war supplemental bill, House Democrats attached a document that “deemed as passed” a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget. The execution of the “deeming” document allows Democrats to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a budget. The procedural vote passed 215-210 with no Republicans voting in favor and 38 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote against deeming the faux budget resolution passed. Never before -- since the creation of the Congressional budget process -- has the House failed to pass a budget, failed to propose...

Good morning, Capitolists! An item in today's Washington Post by the intrepid Paul Kane and Lori Montgomery details a possible strategy contemplated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called a "self-executing rule," which would let the House amend the Senate health care bill without ever voting to pass it. In layman's terms, House Democrats would get the benefit of doing something without having to bear the pain of doing it. Why didn't we think of that?? If you can't find us later today, we're probably out filing a patent request for a self-executing four-mile jog and a self-executing six-week diet. Until...