Rep. Chris Van Hollen
The House has started working on spending bills, and of course has started with the most important thing ever: defense. But they encountered a big hiccup right out of the box, when they were faced with the prospect of an amendment to a spending bill
actually passing. Yes, you read that right. The problem is the amendment
could have passed. So they pulled the bill and delayed the vote.
House GOP leadership aides denied there was a problem with the whip count. Aides said the votes were delayed so that the House can first vote on the budget conference agreement that reconciles the two chambers' spending plans before proceeding with votes on the appropriations bills.
But an amendment from Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, and Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, also appeared to be a potential problem for passage. The amendment offered by the political odd couple would strike provisions of the bill for military construction projects that use funds from the Pentagon's war fund known as the Overseas Contingency Operations account.
Both Van Hollen and Mulvaney argued it represented a budgetary "gimmick" to avoid spending caps established by the 2011 budget deal known as the Budget Control Act (BCA).
That's bipartisanship you can believe in, a Democrat and a Republican joining up to show just how much bullshit is in your typical Republican budget. In this case, using what's basically emergency war funding to increase defense spending in other areas, and not paying for it by actually paying for it, say with new taxes. Van Hollen says they had the votes to pass it, hence it got pulled, at least for now.