Budget Control Act Hypocrisy

The Budget Control Act of 2011 created the super-committee and tasked that group with finding one trillion dollars in deficit reduction over ten years. If that group failed, the legislation enacted "across the board" budget cuts to achieve that deficit reduction. To give those budget cuts time to take effect and reduce the long term deficit, the legislation granted a debt ceiling increase to go into effect after the goal was reached by the which could only be stopped by a super-majority vote in opposition.

The legislation passed the Senate 74-26 with 28 Republicans voting in favor of it and 19 voting against it. One would presume that voting in favor of legislation meant that you supported the plan outlined in that legislation. When the super-committee failed the across the board spending cuts went into affect and the debt ceiling increase was triggered, as per the plan outlined in the Budget Control Act. However, the same people who put that plan into motion voted against the debt ceiling increase when it came up for a vote. Senators who voted for the Budget Control Act voted against the very debt ceiling increase enacted by that legislation less than 6 months before.

In total, 25 Senators that voted in favor of the Budget Control Act voted against the debt ceiling increase. The only Republican that voted in favor of both the BCA and the debt ceiling increase was Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the only Democratic Senator to mimic the Republican behavior of voting in favor of the Act and against the debt ceiling increase. Three Republican Senators that voted in favor of the Budget Control Act chose to cast a "no vote" on the debt ceiling increase.

The story in the House was worse. The only Representative that voted in favor of the Budget Control Act and in favor of the debt increase was Congressman David Dreier of California.

So what happened here? Well, Republican Senators and Congressmen knew that a debt ceiling increase was unavoidable. They didn't want to have to vote in favor of a debt ceiling increase so they concocted a scheme that would allow them to vote against the increase and at the same time ensure its passage. The Budget Control Act allowed this to happen by enacting cuts and then requiring a super-majority to deny the next necessary increase. They knew that House and Senate Democrats would not embarrass the President by denying the increase, so they knew that Republican votes against the debt ceiling increase would not stop the process as they didn't have anything near a super-majority.

Expect the Obama administration to campaign hard on items like this in the general election. Nothing says hypocrisy like enacting a process and then claiming to oppose every step of that process later on. If the Republicans truly opposed a debt ceiling increase, they would have opposed the Budget Control Act from the beginning. If trading a debt ceiling increase today was worth the long term deficit reduction enacted by the legislation, then Republicans should have voted in favor of the debt ceiling increase.

Here is a list of those Senators and voted in favor of the Budget Control Act of 2011 and against the debt ceiling increase it put in place a few months later.

Rob Portman - R (Ohio)

Lisa Murkowski - R (Alaska)

Mitch McConnell - R (Kentucky)

Joe Manchin - D (West Virginia)

Richard Lugar - R (Indiana)

Jon Kyl - R (Arizona)

Mike Johanns - R (Nebraska)

Johnny Isakson - R (Georgia)

Kay Bailey Hutchison - R (Texas)

John Hoeven - R (North Dakota)

Michael Enzi - R (Wyoming)

Mike Crapo - R (Idaho)

John Cornyn - R (Texas)

Susan Collins - R (Maine)

Thad Cochran - R (Mississippi)

Richard Burr - R (North Carolina)

John Boozman - R (Arkansas)

Roy Blunt - R (Missouri)

John Barrasso - R (Wyoming)

Lamar Alexander - R (Tennessee)

Jim Risch - R (Idaho)

Pat Roberts - R (Kansas)

Olympia Snowe - R (Maine)

John Thune - R (South Dakota)

Roger Wicker - R (Mississippi)