The kind-of winner — or least loser — in yesterday’s string of Senate roll call budget votes was Sen. Pat Toomey’s budget, which got 42 votes.
President Obama’s fared the worst, going down 0-99 in a replay of its House rebuke, where it was also offered by Republicans to the chagrin of Democrats.
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) “Path to Prosperity” fell 41-58, with “no” votes from Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Scott Brown (Mass.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Dean Heller (Nev.).
Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) budget failed 16-83. Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) budget went down 17-82.
Toomey, the former Club for Growth president whose name has been floated as a possible vice presidential pick, hailed his budget’s performance without mentioning the 57 “no” votes.
“I am grateful to have the support of my Senate Republican colleagues for my budget proposal,” Toomey said. “Their support for balancing the budget in eight years and solving our debt crisis now is heartening, and I will continue fighting for fiscal responsibility here in Washington.
“At the same time, I am disappointed that my colleagues on the other side refuse even to debate our fiscal crisis, let alone introduce a fiscal blueprint for solving our country’s problems,” he added. “Instead of lobbing political attacks at the ideas I and my Republican colleagues have put forward, it is incumbent upon the majority party to put forward ideas of its own. Anything less is a flagrant abdication of its governing responsibility.”
Toomey’s proposal promises to balance the budget within eight years. It reduces publicly-held debt to approximately 56 percent of GDP by 2022 and lowers spending to 18.3 percent of GDP.
It also lowers all marginal income-tax rates by 20 percent and fully offsets lost revenue for each tax bracket by limiting deductions and exclusions, says Toomey, and lowers the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. The budget also repeals ObamaCare.
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