Two brave Democrats voted for President Obama’s budget on Wednesday, preventing another unanimous defeat for their party leader.
The rest of the chamber, however, had other plans, sending Mr. Obama’s plan to a devastating 413-2 defeat as most Democrats joined Republicans in rejecting the fiscal year 2015 blueprint.
House Republicans staged the vote to be able to argue that Mr. Obama’s plans are unpopular on both sides of the aisle, though Democrats said it was a useless vote and said the plan — which Republicans wrote to reflect the president’s budget — wasn’t actually Mr. Obama’s own plan.
The GOP staged similar votes in 2012, and Mr. Obama’s plan was unanimously defeated in both the House and Senate that year. Last year, Mr. Obama submitted his budget months later than the deadline, which meant the House didn’t even have his plan in time for its own vote.
Mr. Obama’s 2015 plan, which he submitted to Congress in March, only a month late, was met with even less interest than usual. Most of his tax and spending proposals are unlikely to gain traction on Capitol Hill, and even Democrats rejected the president’s call for higher discretionary spending, which would break the agreement the House and Senate reached in December. Mr. Obama signed that agreement into law.
Reps. Jim Moran of Virginia and Marcy Kaptur of Ohio were the two Democrats who backed Mr. Obama’s plan, which calls for higher spending and higher taxes every year for the next decade — though it still never reaches balance.
On Thursday, the House will vote on Rep. Paul Ryan’s 2015 budget, which holds tax revenue steady but drastically cuts spending to finally bring the budget into balance in 2024.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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