In Senate's debt debate, talk isn't cheap

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 10, 2011

In the United States Senate, failure is not an option.

It is a requirement.

Lawmakers, unable to agree on action to deal with the looming debt crisis, set up camp on a new plateau of pointlessness Wednesday: They scheduled votes on two rival plans to cut spending - but only after guaranteeing in advance that both plans would be defeated.

Senate Republicans needed to prove to their colleagues in the House, and conservative activists everywhere, that they don't have the votes to pass major cuts to the current year's budget. Senate Democrats needed to prove to the White House, and to their liberal base, that they don't have the votes to maintain the status quo.

And so, after days of haggling, both sides agreed that they would effectively doom both proposals - severe Republican cuts and cosmetic Democratic cuts - by subjecting them to 60-vote supermajorities. As it happens, such precautions were unnecessary, because, after a three-hour debate, both proposals fell well short of even a simple 50-vote majority.

(More here.)