In other news, of course, the sun sets in the west.
In between personal attacks on Congressman Anthony Weiner, everybody's favorite punching bag, Rush Limbaugh managed to sneak in an insidious little lie on today's radio show.
Now this is a little white lie. It's the sort of thing that finds its way into a righteous rant that supports a broader point. The sad part is that this lie was not even necessary to Rush's argument, but it does illustrate once again how the right likes to play fast and loose with the facts. The narrative means more than the facts to these people.
Here the transcript from Limbaugh's radio show this morning:
Anthony Weiner doing his best Barney Frank impersonation. Now, the real story of this is, here he's having a cow over the Republicans not voting for his bill to help 9/11 responders, but the story is that Democrats had enough defectors that they needed Republican votes. They can't pass anything. Republicans can't stop anything, I should say. They don't have the votes to stop anything in the House. Anthony Weiner and his sponsors could not get enough Democrats to go for this in order to get the thing passed.
(Bold mine, of course)
That certainly sounds good. The problem is he is lying. Now it's not entirely clear if Rush is talking about a hypothetical situation in which HR 847 would have come to a straight up or down vote or if he was referring to the actual situation Thursday night. As a refresher, HR 847 would finally allocate a relatively paltry $7.4 billion to provide health care to the emergency personnel who responded on September 11, 2001.
HR 847 was being considered under suspension of the rules, which expedites "non-controversial" measures. As Congress Matters reminds us, requires 2/3 present to pass.
Now back to Rush's thesis. He claims that "Democrats had enough defectors that they needed Republican votes." The implication is that the measure was so bad that the Democrats were split on the bill.
Here in reality land, we find that is not the case. According to the House Clerk's Office (and we can all agree that is a pretty reasonable source of information, considering it is their job to post the results of votes), the votes turned out like this:
Democrats: 243 yea, 4 nay, 7 not voting
Republicans 12 yea, 155 nay, 11 not voting
Now some advanced fourth grade math:
243+4+12+155=414 members present to vote
2/3 of 414=275.97
Therefore, 276 yeas were needed for passage.
But with a regular vote, only 218 votes are needed for passage.
So Rush is right on two points. The Democrats needed Republicans to pass the bill under suspension of the rules. He was also right that some Democrats defected. Four of them.
But a stopped clock is right twice a day, too.
The House Democratic leadership, rightly or wrongly, thought HR 847 would sail through the House under suspension. After all, the Republicans have no problem exploiting 9/11 for political gain.
But looking at those numbers again, it is clear that the problem was not defecting Democrats. The Democrats hold 255 seats. As most of the grown ups know, 255 < 276 and 255 > 218. With the four Democratic defections, Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership needed 25 Republican votes under suspension, but easily pass the bill under regular order.
Unfortunately, they could only find 12 Republicans who don't hate 9/11 emergency responders. (Hyperbole intended as only two-thirds jokingly.) In all fairness, the Republicans were in a snit because they couldn't offer amendments, even though they would probably just vote against the bill with their lame amendments. (That's the point of suspension of the rules.)
So Rep. Weiner was correct. If the Republicans really cared about this issue, they would have wiped their butts with their amendments. That's what we mean by "elections have consequences."
If you think that $7.4 billion price tag is a bit much, consider that Congress is looking at a war supplemental of $59 billion. The Veteran's Administration will be asking for $125 billion in fiscal year 2011.
And for the record, here are the four Democratic defectors:
Melissa Bean (IL-08)
Marion Berry (AR-01)
Bobby Bright (AL-02)
Jim Cooper (TN-05)
Update: And this bill would have been fully paid for. According to Speaker Pelosi:
The bill, which would cost $7.4 billion over the next ten years, is fully paid for by a provision preventing foreign multinational firms that are incorporated in tax haven countries from avoiding tax on income earned in the U.S.
Thanks, whoknu!
And I just know you want to see the video again. Here ya go:
And for what it's worth, here are Rush's personal attacks on Weiner and Democrats.
Oh, man, Anthony Weiner lost it. They know that their majority is slipping away. They are crapping up -- cracking up. That was a faux pas. That's a Freudian slip. I did not mean to say that. I apologize. I take it back. I did not mean to say he's crapping up. I meant to say cracking up...
They've gotten everything they want, and they're still miserable, but that's not the real story of this.
Anthony Weiner -- you gotta wonder how married life's going for the guy -- he married Huma Abedin who is an aide to Hillary Clinton.
Crossposted at Progressive Electorate
