None of the competing budget resolutions debated and voted on by the House Wednesday and Thursday, however, provided any serious alternative.
A proposal based on the Obama administration's own budget numbers, offered by Republican Congressman Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina in order to ridicule it, was voted down by 414 to zero, without a single Democratic vote.
Three measures offered by various factions of the Democratic Party were all voted down -- the Black Caucus budget was defeated 107-314, the Progressive Caucus budget 78-346, and a Democratic leadership budget 163-262.
Significantly, all of these budget resolutions adhered to the spending levels set last August in the bipartisan White House deal. In other words, the Democrats, even in their most liberal guise, accepted the budget cuts endorsed by Obama last year.
The House also defeated, by a vote of 136-285, an alternative to the Ryan budget resolution with even greater cuts, proposed by the Republican Study Group, a caucus of ultra-right and Tea Party members.
One other budget resolution was voted on, and despite its lopsided defeat, the measure was politically significant. A bipartisan group of right-wing Democrats and moderate Republicans proposed a budget plan based on the report of the Simpson-Bowles commission, which Obama appointed to devise a deficit-reduction program.
The resolution was overwhelmingly defeated, by 38 to 382, because few Republicans would vote for a resolution calling for tax increases on the wealthy, and few Democrats wanted to publicly support sizeable cuts in Medicare and Social Security in a bill that was certain to be defeated.
Nonetheless, the bipartisan measure indicated where a deal is to be had once the charade of the November elections is completed. Whatever the configuration of the two parties, in terms of control of the White House, Senate or House of Representatives, there will be a bipartisan deal to slash spending on the poor and working class, while preserving, with only token changes, the enormous tax boondoggles for the wealthy.
This will be presented to the American people, either by President Obama or his Republican successor, as a measure providing "equal sacrifice" or "shared responsibility" for the fiscal crisis of the federal government.
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