Senate Republicans Hold It Together, Pork-Filled Omnibus Bill Killed

The Senate Republicans were able to hold it together and force Harry Reid to back down and pull the omnibus bill full of Christmas goodies to various special interests because of a lack of support:

Sen. GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has long been known as an effective whip, and Thursday night he showed his prowess as he effectively stripped Democrats of the GOP votes needed to pass the $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill, killing the measure for good.

A visibly frustrated and angry Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, lashed out, saying that he had nine GOP senators supporting the measure, but that suddenly the support evaporated.

"This action taken by my friends on other side of aisle going to cause people to lose their job," Reid predicted.

"There's only one reason why cloture is not being filed...He doesn't have the votes.," McConnell chided, as he referred to the term for the process to shut down a filibuster. "And the reason he doesn't have the votes is because members on this side of the aisle increasingly felt concerned about the way we do business."

A McConnell aide said the leader "worked the phones" for days, pressing his members to quash the bill which contains $8 billion in earmarks (1% of the overall bill), several that belonged to the leader, himself, before he agreed to a pork moratorium.

Tempers flared in the chamber quickly, as Republicans gloated.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, crusader against pork, tweeted all day Wednesday and Thursday with earmarks he found in the bill, from money for disease-resistant wine grapes to a ceramics museum in Biloxi, Miss. And Thursday night, with a big grin, he praised GOP members for ditching the deal.

Two cheers for the Republicans for, actually, standing up for Republican principles. This bill needed to be tossed out and started anew. Hopefully, they will be able to do another one soon. Hold the pork, though.

They needed to do this to keep or regain the confidence of the people that elected them to turn things around. The GOP has been just as bad in this area over the last decade as the Democrats, which is why they got the boot in 2008. Luckily, the TEA Party was able to wake up the Grand Old Party this past year before were exiled into oblivion forever.

They are still are on probation with the voters. So, they need to keep working on being the fiscally responsible and cutting spending, if they ever want to get regain our trust for good.

DeMint: On Second Thought I'm Not 100% Committed to Filibustering Obama's Tax Compromise

Two days ago, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) went onto the Hugh Hewitt radio show and flat out said that he'd vote no on both cloture and in general votes for the tax cut compromise:

HH: I’ve got some quick questions for you. The first is if the deal reached between the President and the Republican leadership yesterday makes it to the floor of the Senate in substantially the same form, will you vote for cloture to allow a final vote on it? And would you vote for it on that final vote if it cleared cloture?

JD: No.

HH: On both counts?

JD: On both counts.

However, after being blasted by many, including Jennifer Rubin, his office has walked back his previous statement in an email sent to the Washington Post's conservative writer:

Senator Jim DeMint's staff pushed back hard on my post earlier today, insisting DeMint is not really threatening to filibuster the bipartisan tax deal. Spokesman Wesley Denton emailed me, "Senator DeMint has simply stated he does not support the deal as currently structured as it includes huge new deficit spending and death tax hikes. Americans just voted in a historic election for Washington to stop the deficit spending that is mortgaging our children's future." He also defended DeMint's position on the death tax, arguing that "there is no question that raising the death tax from its current rate of zero to 35 percent is a large tax hike that will hurt family farms and small businesses and could destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs." The bottom line seems to be that DeMint will be "open to a temporary extension of all current tax rates without new deficit spending," but he won't give up pushing for the Bush tax rates to become permanent.

So, he is still saying that he's against the compromise, but he just isn't going to commit to the filibuster, just yet. DeMint may very well come around on the fact that this may be the best deal that he can get and still get the bill passed before taxes go up in three weeks. Time is running out, and the escalating pressure of the upcoming deadline will probably be what gets those that aren't so sure about this bill, right now, on both sides, to eventually concede that this is the best thing to do for the country. I would expect DeMint to cave sometime next week, after other Republicans talk to him and convince him to support the bill.

H/T to HotAir's Allahpundit

Oh My! DeMint: Michael Steele Is Reason Why GOP Didn't Take Senate Too

There is a growing movement to oust Michael Steele out of the RNC Chair. Yesterday, Jim DeMint (R-SC) added his voice to the chorus:

The lack of a well-organized voter mobilization effort by the Republican National Committee could have cost the GOP “a few Senate seats,” Sen. Jim DeMint suggested Sunday.

Partly as a result, the South Carolina Republican suggested he wouldn’t support a second term for controversial RNC Chairman Michael Steele, saying on "Fox News Sunday" “I’m looking for some alternatives right now.”

“I haven’t decided who would support," DeMint said, "but we need a strong national Republican organization to help organize the energy of the tea parties and the other citizen activism that we are seeing out there right now. We need to make sure that we have a lot of boots on the ground.”

The senator said, “I appreciate Michael Steele’s service.” But he added the party’s get-out-the-vote effort lagged under Steele, asserting “where we lost a few Senate seats, our ground game was not as strong as it could have been. We were actually out manned on the ground.”

I actually think that it is a bit unfair to blame Steele for not taking back the Senate. There was hardly anyone before election day that thought that the Republicans would be able to overcome the 9-seat deficit to take back the Senate. Only 1/3 of the Senate was up and about half of those we'ree Republican incumbents. They would've had to flip almost all Democratic incumbents to do it. Three of those seats that were lost were from very heavily blue states of California, Delaware, and Connecticut, and Colorado leans Democratic most of the time. The only loss that was a complete waste of a seat was Sharron Angle's loss to Harry Reid in Nevada.

Now, he has been prone to gaffes during his 1st year, but he has seemed to have toned it down, over the past few months. I don't know, if I would agree with it, but his departure seems more and more likely with every passing day.

DeMint: Sure I'll Raise the Spending Cap....If There Are Massive Spending Cuts Too

In the wake of the Red Tsunami that swept across America this past Tuesday, liberals are going to try to goad Republicans into compromising our core values in order to get things done. The American people are expecting those that we elected to stop this spending orgy and erase the deficit. As the RNC chairman, Michael Steele, put it, they are on probation until 2012, and they will be yanked the next election, if they fall back on the old Republican way of not practicing what they preach.

Jim DeMint is, usually, known to be a solid conservative, but he has a RINO moment here, teasing to back raising the spending limit, if the Democrats ok massive spending cuts:

JOHN KING, HOST, "JOHN KING USA": ….. Many have said now that the Republicans have a majority in the House, more conservatives in the Senate, where will we know, when will we know if you're serious about keeping your promises about spending and the debt. If there's a vote in the Congress on raising the debt ceiling so that the government can continue to print money and spend money, should Republicans say no?

SEN. JIM DEMINT (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I think Republicans will say no, unless that raising of the debt ceiling is accompanied by some -- some dramatic spending cuts, something that would direct us toward a balanced budget in the future, Republicans will not support an increase in the debt limit.

What I hope you'll see from Republicans right out of the box, as soon as we get back, is a moratorium on earmarks. Americans and connected the dots. They realize if we're all up there trying to bring home the bacon, we're going to bankrupt our country. And if Republicans in the House and the Senate both take a pledge to not ask for earmarks and to have a moratorium on -- on them in the Congress, I think it will show Americans, at least at the beginning, that we are serious.

So there are a number of other things we need to do to demonstrate that we're -- we're serious. And one of those is to de-fund Obama Care, and, as soon as we can, hopefully, have a vote on balancing the budget.

While this sounds like another Republican acquiescing to the Democrats’ demands and compromising our core values, in order to get anything done, it does confuse me a bit because if there are massive spending cuts, why would we ever need to raise the spending limit? If we are spending way less, there is no need to raise the cap.

Maybe this is just harmless carrot that he is dangling in front of the Democrats, since massive spending cuts is what this country needs, and with those cuts, raising the cap would be useless. However, it could end up biting us in the butt, in the end, if there is ever a liberal lean in Washington like there had been over the past two years. It would be one less obstacle for them to overcome to implement an even greater spending spree next time.

SC GOP Senators Graham, DeMint: Propose a 1 Year Earmark Ban & Balanced Budget Amendment

While the Democrats on laying the groundwork to spend even more, top GOP senators are seeking to stop the bleeding with a ban on the notorious earmarks that bring money back into their states:

South Carolina's senators urged Congress on Thursday to institute a one-year ban on "earmarks," or funding for congressional lawmakers' pet projects.

Republican Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham also called on their colleagues to approve a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, which would bar the government from spending more than it takes in.

Nine other lawmakers joined their call, including perhaps the most famous earmark opponent of all -- Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential candidate.

This could be a ground-breaking step to getting government spending under control, if they keep their own promise. Considering that we're talking about politicians, I'm not inspired with great confidence that they will. I just hope that this isn't just publicity stunt.

Unfortunately, this has very small chance of passing in the Senate, much less the ultra-partisan House. Surely, both Graham and DeMint had to be aware of this which tells me that this might just be more of a stunt than a genuine proposal.