Reid Will Hold Votes To Expose Republicans

It looks like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) may have finally discovered his backbone (and it's about time). Reid says he is scheduling the House-approved Ryan Budget Plan for a vote in the Senate. This is the budget plan that would abolish Medicare and Medicaid and then use much of that money to give corporations new tax cuts (even though many already pay no taxes).

Since the House Republicans voted overwhelmingly to pass the Ryan Budget Plan, they have found that their constituents back home are not happy about that vote. In the last couple of weeks many of these House Republicans have been holding town hall meetings, and the people attending those have not been kind to the House Republicans. Even much of their Republican base is opposed to the abolishment of Medicare -- and a significant majority of Americans don't want to see new tax cuts for the rich or corporations.

It's beginning to look like the House Republicans have given the Democrats a couple of great issues to campaign on -- and to beat their Republican opponents over the head with. So Reid, whose is definitely against the Ryan Budget Plan, has decided to give Senate Republicans the opportunity to join their House comrades as the butt of citizens' anger. He is going to schedule a vote on the Ryan Budget Plan, and then dare Senate Republicans to vote for it (with the sure knowledge that vote would be used against them in the next election).

This may be the smartest thing Reid has done since becoming majority leader. It definitely puts the Senate Republicans between a rock and a hard place. They must either vote against their own party's budget plan (and risk the ire of teabaggers) or vote for it (and risk angering the general public) -- neither of which are good choices for these Republicans. It wouldn't surprise me if several Republicans found some other place to be when this vote is held -- especially moderates like Snowe (Maine) and Brown (Massachusetts) who must run for re-election in 2012 in states not known as "red states".

And further proving Reid may actually now have a backbone is the fact that he wants to double-down on the pressure on Republican senators. It has become obvious recently that a clear majority of Americans are not happy with Big Oil receiving billions in subsidies that are no longer needed, since these companies are making record profits (yesterday Exxon announced it had $10.7 billion in net profit for the first quarter of the year and Shell said their first quarter net profit was $6.9 billion).

So Reid also wants to schedule a vote on abolishing the government subsidies for Big Oil. This is another vote the Republican senators won't want to have. If they vote to abolish the subsidies they will anger their corporate donors, and if they vote to continue the subsidies they may be hurting their own chances for re-election. Finally, Reid and the Democrats are playing the same kind of political hardball the Republicans have been playing. And it could pay huge dividends in the 2012 election.

Over in the House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is also asking for a vote of abolishing the oil company subsidies, but Speaker Boehner is having none of it. His Republican underlings are having enough trouble trying to defend their vote to abolish Medicare and give corporations a tax cut (Ryan Budget Plan), and he doesn't want to saddle them with another vote the American voters won't be happy about. Besides, they get too many campaign dollars from Big Oil to vote against them on this.

It looks like the Republicans have gone too far in trying to give more to their corporate masters and cut government programs they never liked. The "mandate" they claimed to have has now turned into a lot of anger directed right at them. If they were smart, they would admit they made a mistake and apologize to the voters. But Republicans have never been good at either admitting mistakes or apologizing. With a little luck, Democrats may be able to ride this citizen anger through the 2012 election.