Photo Credit: GOP.gov/Flickr
By Adam Bitely — House Republicans have turned the power of the purse over to the White House after passing H.R. 325, a bill that suspends the debt ceiling until May 19, 2013 and threatens to withhold pay from members of Congress after April 15 if a budget is not adopted. The vote was 285-144 with 86 Democrats crossing over to help Republicans while 33 Republicans stood up and said no to the absurdity of the debt ceiling elimination.
Harry Reid has said that he will get this measure passed in the Senate and Obama has said he will sign it if the measure comes to his desk. Republicans have suspended the debt ceiling on the hope that Democrats will side with them on adopting a budget that will lead to balance within 10 years–which is incredibly unlikely.
ALG President Bill Wilson said the following about Republicans kicking the can down the road, “This is a partial repeal of representative government. Through the elimination of the debt ceiling, even just until May 19, the American people now have no say in the amount of debt the government contracts. The only say whatsoever representatives had on the some 60 percent of the $3.7 trillion budget that operates on autopilot, which includes Social Security, Medicare, and other forms of so-called ‘mandatory’ spending, was the periodic vote on increasing the debt ceiling. Now that it has been suspended, the debt ceiling may never be reinstated.”
To pass this Republican measure, Speaker John Boehner had to again rely on Democrats. The question now is whether Nancy Pelosi holds all the power in the House?
Adam Bitely is the Editor-in-Chief of NetRightDaily.com.
