GOP Freshmen Rally Behind Ryan Budget
The Republican Conference rallied around Rep. Paul Ryan budget plan this afternoon and approved the framework for the 2012 fiscal year.
Only four Republicans opposed the Ryan plan, none of them freshmen. The Republicans who voted against the plan were Reps. David McKinley (WV), Ron Paul (TX), Walter Jones (NC) and Denny Rehberg (MT). Democrats unanimously voted against the plan.
After the vote, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) echoed a familiar refrain among Republicans who approved of Paul Ryan’s plan.
“For decades, politicians in Washington, DC threw a spending party paid for by our nation’s credit card. Now our debt has reached $14 trillion. It’s killing jobs and it threatens important programs like Medicare. It’s no fun cleaning up after the party is over, but that’s what I was elected to do. We can’t keep going this way. It’s time to put the credit card away and clean up the mess,” Herrera Beutler said in a statement this afternoon.
If we take the votes at face value - which is not entirely reliable because leadership was pressing members to change their votes to “no” at the last minute – it’s interesting to note the number of freshmen who were satisfied enough with the Paul Ryan plan to vote for it, but dissatisfied enough to vote for the more aggressive Republican Study Committee (RSC) plan.
The Republican Study Committee’s budget proposal was also put up for a vote today, where it failed 119 to 120 (Democrats voted present in order to give the vote tallies the look of a divided GOP).
By FrumForum’s count, 35 freshmen Reps. voted for the RSC’s plan, or 40% of the freshmen class. In contrast, 84 non-freshmen voted for the RSC, or 54% of all non-freshmen.
So what does this tell us? Well, it suggests that contrary to popular belief, non-freshmen as a group may be willing to get more aggressive about the deficit and debt than freshmen are. Or at least that freshmen were more easily strong-armed into voting against the RSC plan.
Add Tim on twitter: www.twitter.com/timkmak
Tweet