On this momentous occasion of the worst possible thing not happening, let's not concern ourselves overmuch with winners (Democrats, America) and losers (the Tea Party, rank idiocy). Instead, let's celebrate. Government by extortion has been rejected. A global financial panic has been averted, the United States retains its role as an economic leader, and the dollar remains the world's reserve currency -- for now. Maybe Fitch will still downgrade our credit rating, but who cares? When Standard & Poor's downgraded us in 2011, borrowing costs actually fell, remember that? Oh, and the same thing happened in Italy. It's almost as though people don't trust the judgments of the credit rating agencies who said subprime-backed securities were AAA Would Invest Again can't-miss licenses to print money. Weird...
Where were we? Oh yeah. Democrats win! America wins! Tea Party loses! Ted Cruz 2016!
The Senate passed the bill 81-18 in a palindrome of Freedom (not to be confused with a Palindrone). Jim Inhofe bravely did not vote. The 18 votes against, all Republicans, were:
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Ted Cruz (R-TX)
Mike Enzi (R-WY)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Dean Heller (R-NV)
Ron Johnson (R-WI)
Mike Lee (R-UT)
Rand Paul (R-KY)
James Risch (R-ID)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Marco Rubio (R-FL)
Tim Scott (R-SC)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Richard Shelby (R-AL)
Pat Toomey (R-PA)
David Vitter (R-LA)
So basically every "Oh, that dick" in the world's worst deliberative body, plus a few "Who?"s. The bill will raise the debt limit through February 7th, fund the government through January 15th, and includes income verification for those seeking Obamacare subsidies. Those already exist, but we guess there will be more of them? Good, now we can shut down the terrible, broken healthcare.gov site and say it's because we're adding income verification provisions.
Republicans also agreed via unanimous consent to go to budget conference:
22nd time's the charm, as they say!
Then Barry said some stuff; we weren't listening but maybe you want to read it. Then the House yammered for about a half hour, for no reason, but it was very important to condemn the shocking way the President spiked the football, even though no discernible indentation could be seen in the end zone. And then: The vote! The final score was:
Responsible Adults: 285
Petulant Children: 144
All Democrats who voted were on the right side of history. They were joined by 87 Republicans, some of whom will certainly face primary challenges by frothing anger-bears.
Then Barry signed the bill, and then he fucked Michelle with the vigor of a Spartan king before drifting off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
[LA Times / Forbes / The Week / Bloomberg / Voice of America / LA Times / Twitter / Politico]
