Last week, the Senate took four votes on four separate budget resolutions: the House-passed Ryan budget (failed, 40-57); the Toomey GOP alternative (failed, 42-55); the Rand Paul alternative (failed, 7-90); and the president’s budget proposal (failed, 0-97). What do we make of this?
These were symbolic votes, in the sense that the Senate was simply laying down markers to prove that no existing budget resolution can yet attain a majority in the Senate. Much like how the FY2011 omnibus appropriations alternatives were symbolically voted on a few months ago to prove similar conditions held at the time. Or kinda like how the vote on the debt limit in the House today is going to go. You can also learn a little bit about the shape of the politics by seeing who is where on the roll calls, so I suppose there’s some informational gains in addition to the symbolism, but not much. And, of course, there are undoubtedly some Senators up for re-election who would like to lay down a personal marker for political reasons.
Still, one thing in particular lashed through my head when I saw the Senate vote totals: the unanimous defeat of the president’s budget eerily reminded me of the 0-95 vote in 1997 that sank American involvement in the Kyoto Protocol. It’s pretty rare for a presidential initiative to have no support on the Hill; it’s even rarer that such a zero-support item actually sees the light of day in a roll call vote. Not that I think this is any reflection on Clinton or Obama; sometimes the president is out of step with the Congress, especially when there is a time gap between the position-taking. Obama probably underestimated the budgetary climate when he released his FY12 budget, but it’s probably also true that a hell of a lot has changed since February. (Obama’s budget is probably also perfectly positioned to appeal to no one — it’s just far enough to the right to make old-school new dealers as mad as the budget hawks.)
One obvious difference, of course, between Kyoto and Obama FY12 is that Kyoto was a president getting progressively out in front of the legislature, while Obama FY12 looks now like a president mildly retrenching (at least retrospectively) behind the legislature. The latter is almost always safer, politically. Getting out in front can be a profitable risk, but it’s almost always a risk; retrenching behind can cause problems, but it’s almost never grave. It’s a risk-averse position, for sure. In other words, when you go out on a limb for Kyoto and then get spanked by the legislature, it’s hard to then join the club without looking silly and it’s unlikely you’ll ever win over the public. But if you retrench a little bit, neither of those things are true. In effect, you keep your options open: joining the club is a little costly, but you’ll get positive press and most people won’t even notice. And if the public decides you were right all along, well, bonanza.
