Fail.
Senate Republicans have filibustered a Democratic bill that would pay down sequestration’s indiscriminate spending cuts for a year.
Though the vote outcome was never in doubt, the legislation’s demise assures that Congress will miss Friday’s sequestration deadline, and federal agencies will begin cutting projects and services.
The final vote was 51-49. It needed 60 votes to pass. Sens. Kay Hagan (D-NC), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Mark Pryor (D-AR) voted with a unified GOP conference to block the bill. All three face tough elections in 2014. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also switched his vote from yes to no — a procedural maneuver that preserves his right to call the measure up for a vote again quickly in the future.
If the bill would have become law, it would have replaced tens of billions of dollars in spending cuts set to take place this year with 10 years’ worth of deficit reducing tax increases and targeted spending cuts. The revenue would have come largely from individuals making over $5 million a year, by imposing a minimum “Buffett Rule” tax on their earnings. The cuts would have been divided evenly between agriculture subsidies and defense spending.
