The headline-grabbing vote from the House this afternoon was the one for the budget resolution that starts the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act. Although over the past six years, Republicans have often managed to secure the support of at least a handful of Democrats for various bills to weaken the ACA, Democrats stood united. An ideologically diverse group of 9 Republicans broke from their party there.
However, the party saw less unity when it came to the amendment offered by John Yarmuth (KY-03), the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
Yarmuth’s amendment was the Democratic budget alternative, which would strike the clauses related to ACA repeal and add a “deficit-neutral reserve fund for job creation, infrastructure investment, and tax reform”:
TITLE II--RESERVE FUND
SEC. 2001. DEFICIT-NEUTRAL RESERVE FUND FOR JOB CREATION,
INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT, AND TAX REFORM.
In the House of Representatives, the chair of the Committee
on the Budget may revise the allocations, aggregates, and other
appropriate levels in this resolution for any bill, joint
resolution, amendment, or conference report that provide job
creation through robust Federal investments in America's
infrastructure and reforming the tax code to provide relief for
American families. The revisions may be made for any measure
that--
(1) provides for additional investments in highways,
public transit, rail, aviation, harbors, seaports,
inland waterway systems, public housing, broadband,
energy, water, and other job-creating infrastructure
improvements, and
(2) reforms the tax code to support hardworking
American families;
by the amounts provided in such measure if such measure does
not increase the deficit for either of the following time
periods: fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2021 or fiscal year
2017 to fiscal year 2026.
It is a “deficit-neutral reserve fund” because budget amendments cannot increase spending beyond the levels authorized.
The amendment failed 149 to 272, with 37 Democrats joining the GOP in voting against it. In other words, these 37 Democrats voted against repealing the ACA and voted against not repealing it.
Here are the 37 Democrats:
Pete Aguilar (CA-31)
Ami Bera (CA-07)
Julia Brownley (CA-26)
Cheri Bustos (IL-17)
Gerry Connolly (VA-11)
Jim Cooper (TN-05)
Lou Correa (CA-46)
Jim Costa (CA-16)
Charlie Crist (FL-13)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
John Delaney (MD-06)
Suzan DelBene (WA-01)
Bill Foster (IL-11)
Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05)
Jim Himes (CT-04)
Derek Kilmer (WA-06)
Ron Kind (WI-03)
Annie Kuster (NH-01)
Dan Lipinski (IL-03)
David Loebsack (IA-02)
Zoe Lofgren (CA-19)
Stephanie Murphy (FL-07)
Tom O’Halleran (AZ-01)
Scott Peters (CA-52)
Collin Peterson (MN-07)
Jared Polis (CO-02)
Kathleen Rice (NY-04)
Jacky Rosen (NV-03)
Raul Ruiz (CA-36)
Brad Schneider (IL-10)
Kurt Schrader (OR-05)
Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09)
Darren Soto (FL-09)
Tom Suozzi (NY-03)
Nikki Tsongas (MA-03)
Pete Visclosky (IN-01)
Tim Walz (MN-01)
In 2015, 22 Democrats voted against the Democratic budget resolution. 31 Democrats did so in 2014. Some of these Democrats are in purple districts. The belief that they will look like noble independents for voting against their own party’s budget—rather than members of a disorganized caucus filled with people who stand for nothing—always strikes me as ill-founded.
The fact that these Democrats could not bring themselves to vote for the budget resolution attempting to block ACA repeal is simply reprehensible. As is the fact that they can’t bring themselves to support the idea of “robust federal investments in America’s infrastructure and reforming the tax code to provide relief for America’s [working] families.”