Shameless hypocrisy is nothing new in politics, but it’s rarely laid out as nakedly as it has been this week on Capitol Hill.
In the coming days each chamber will hold one vote on one dead-on-arrival piece of legislation, to expose divisions within the minority party. Senate Democrats will force a vote on the dead-on-arrival House GOP budget, complete with its plan to phase out Medicare. And next week, House Republicans will force a vote on a “clean” extension of the debt limit, to prove they have a mandate to tie the debt limit to significant spending cuts.
You might not be surprised to learn that the leaders of both parties have contradictory views on these messaging votes. But you wouldn’t expect them to contradict themselves so quickly.
Here’s Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) Tuesday, at his weekly Capitol briefing, on forcing the vote on the House GOP budget: “When we had H.R. 1 the Republicans kept saying, ‘Why isn’t Reid allowing a vote on H.R.1?’ So we finally had a vote on H.R. 1. They don’t have to say that to me this time. They don’t have to say that to me this time. We’re going to have a vote on the Medicare killing bill that the House has passed.”
Here he is, moments later, on Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) forcing a vote on a “clean” debt limit extension: “My personal feeling is I think it sends a terrible message to the international community. Bringing up something that they know is going to fail? Bringing up something so they show it won’t pass. How does that help what we’re trying to do.”
Not to be outdone, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took the mic to make exactly the opposite points in equally quick succession.
“This is the first time in the history of the United States Senate that a majority leader has brought up a budget passed by the other House of the other party,” McConnell said, decrying “political gamesmanship such as what we’ll be to some extent involved in down here in the Senate this week, because none of these budgets are actually going to be adopted.”
Moments later, on the House’s debt limit vote, he said “It’ll be interesting to see how many members of the House of Representatives of either party any longer believe that it’s a good idea to pass a clean debt ceiling, to raise the debt ceiling with no spending reduction at all. My guess is there’re not going to be many members left who believe that’s a good idea. … I think it’s important for the markets and for everybody to understand that Congress doesn’t intend to raise the debt ceiling without doing something about spending.”
Posturing is good, except when it’s bad, and the true test of a first-rate mind is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time and still function.
