Doesn't it work both ways?

The House passed a budget for 2012 this afternoon. The proposal from budget committee chairman Paul Ryan passed with every Democrat voting against it. There was also a proposed budget with even larger cuts that narrowly failed; on this pproposal, the Democrats voted present rather than against the bill. The House Democrats used president Obama's old ploy (he voted present repeatedly while in the Illinois legislature) so that Republicans could not all get to vote for a measure with extra cuts. When the House progressive caucus put forth a budget proposal, the majority of Democrats again voted no. The House Black Caucus also had a proposal and the majority of Democrats voted no. The proposal from the ranking Democrat on the Budget committee also did not get a majority of the Democrats to support it. In summary, the Democrats voted against every budget proposal. It seems that they want to go through another year without a budget.

The next major item on the fiscal agenda is raising the debt ceiling. Not long ago, every Democrat in the senate (including Obama) voted against one of these debt increases. Of course, the Democrats and the media are now hysterically freaking about the possibility that the GOP would oppose the increase unless there are concessions from the Democrats to make further cuts in spending or otherwise control the budget mess. So, the Democrats are allowed to oppose all budget measures in the House and to vote against raising the debt ceiling. If the Republicans do the same thing, however, it is an absolutely inappropriate act. The truth is that it is time for the GOP to use the debt ceiling increase to get control of spending. Ultimately, there needs to be some means to move the Democrats and the debt ceiling increase is just the thing for the job.