As I’m not writing regularly anymore it’s not often that I read a piece and think: “I wish I wrote that.”
But Scott McKay’s piece at the American Spectator (via Hotair headlines) certainly fits the bill.
You see it’s all about the reality of the math.
It’s irritating to have to bring this up, but the Republicans have a 220-215 majority in the House and a 53-47 majority in the Senate which isn’t really 53 votes given that Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Mitch McConnell, Bill Cassidy and a few others seem to do everything they can to torpedo the conservative agenda. For the most part, they’re ineffective in that respect, because none of them are all that willing to be the one vote that kills a bill or a nomination. They know there will be consequences for that, and they don’t have the courage to face those.
Nevertheless, that 53? It plays like 51. And the 220 plays like 215; luckily, 215 was all the Big Beautiful Bill needed on Thursday morning.
You have the number of votes that you have. Then there is the reality of the the filibuster:
Mike Johnson couldn’t send a clean, stripped-down budget bill through the House, though that would have been easier, and the budget aspects of the bill might have been better. Know why? Because codifying Trump’s agenda through legislation in 2025 means everything has to be attached to a must-pass bill.
As in, budget reconciliation.
You have to force the agenda through an omnibus bill if you want to pass it, because Democrats will reflexively filibuster everything the rules allow them to.
There is zero chance of passing a bill in the senate that requires more than 50 votes and JD Vance. Which means it has to be done in a single bill.
And then there is a reality:
The point is that while this thing could have been quite a bit leaner from a budget perspective, assuming it gets through the Senate and Trump signs it, Congress will have then codified the bulk of Trump’s agenda by the middle of the summer and there won’t be all that much to do for the rest of the year other than to shrink the federal government.
Which isn’t a bad place to be in.
And if you can’t understand why Vought would be so sanguine about the bill even though it doesn’t seem to be very aggressive in chopping down on federal spending, this is likely why.
Some of this is speculative, I’ll grant. But again, this is an ongoing process. And we are dealing in the world of what is possible with the Congress we have.
Within that world, this is a win. Sure, it’s probably not a beautiful win. It’s a 50-yard field goal with one second left to eke out a victory, and the team didn’t cover the spread.
But in the end it will be codified into law and let me remind you of something I said 15 years ago during the Scott Brown special election back in 2010:
…in an attempt to stop Obamacare. In a broadcast by 73wire with Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar (Brown’s new media guy) we talked about the healthcare bill and there was an interesting exchange. I stressed how important this election was because it was necessary to stop obamacare BEFORE it was passed prompting the following:
Ali: “And if it does pass, we will repeal it!”
DaTechGuy: “No we won’t.”
It was very telling that Ali (who is a really smart young man) didn’t argue the point with me and changed the subject.
It was six long years before there was a chance to get rid of Obamacare, and when that chance came John McCain with the applause of every Democrat in the Senate cast the vote to save it.
There is a lot that COULD have been in that big beautiful bill if we had more votes to spare in the House or the Senate but there is plenty IN that bill that the left loathes and that we have wanted to get done for a while.
Once those things are law it will be tough for Democrats to get the votes to repeal them. They’ll need the house and the senate and a President ready to sign and they’ll need majorities where even Democrats in swing districts will go along and you remember what happened last time swing dems did so.
Thus came the Stupak Amendment and the fig leaf he provided while proving disastrous to him and his followers was a Godsend to others as he said later:
“I had a number of members who thanked us after because they could vote no.”
But Stupak fig leaf would quickly wither. His seat and 62 others for democrats would not survive election day and even more shocking to the left the New GOP majority would remain even after the re-election of President Obama
I think putting the dems in this position is a good idea.
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