The Senate Passes A Budget Bill That Will Go Nowhere

The senate passed a budget bill that four democrats from red states voted against.  The senate bill is far to the right of a bill proposed by the progressive caucus in the democratic party.  It is to the left of the Ryan budget only because the Ryan budget is further to the right of any budget that has been proposed in recent history.  (The Ryan budget is also flawed for other reasons.  It promises to balance the budget but it does not provide the details about how that will happen).

The senate budget has no chance of winning support in the GOP controlled House.  Any compromise that comes out of the reconciliation process between the House and the Senate, will produce a budget that is only bit less radical that the far right Ryan budget.  That is because of the way the senate is constituted.  Democrats manage to win senate seats in small states that are typically conservative but the senators from those seats do not always support democratic bills.  All of the republicans in the senate voted against the senate budget.  Many of them also come from small states that are typically conservative.  In other words, the senate is biased in a conservative direction.  Small conservative states like Wyoming have the same number of senators as large liberal states like California.  Consequently, the democrats which have a majority in the senate, and which also won the presidential election, are unable to pass liberal bills.  Even when the democrats controlled the House and the senate, President Obama could not get liberal bills passed.  Conservative democratic senators from small states joined with republicans in supporting filibusters in the senate.  It was necessary to win 60 votes in order to overcome the filibuster.  The primary advantage that liberals get when democrats  hold the White House, and have a majority in the senate, is that they can prevent an even more dramatic movement to the far right in America.  American politics will remain conservative as long as a super-majority is required to overcome filibusters in the senate.