Senate Passes Budget Bill

Barely.

The Senate narrowly passed a $40 billion budget-cutting bill today, with Vice President Cheney casting the deciding vote after the chamber split 50-50 on the measure.

Taking his seat as president of the Senate after cutting short a trip to the Middle East, Cheney announced he was voting for the legislation, making the final tally 51-50 in favor of passage.

Why was Dick Cheney forced to cast the deciding vote? Because Senate RINOs continue their obstruction to what little fiscal responsibility the Republican Party attempts to retain.

The five maverick Republicans-- Susan M. Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Gordon Smith of Oregon, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island -- joined James Jeffords, an independent from Vermont, and all Senate Democrats in opposing the bill, which would allow states to impose new fees on Medicaid recipients, cut federal child support enforcement funds, impose new work requirements on state welfare programs and squeeze student lenders.

I just love how the media so casually refer to these "moderate" Republicans as "mavericks," as if they're somehow nobly bucking a party that everyone knows is just itching to screw the poor and the elderly. Entitlement spending has spiraled out of control since Republicans assumed control of Congress in 2002.

Republicans took heat a couple days ago for attaching ANWR drilling to the 2006 defense bill, which Senate Democrats are still attempting to filibuster. But with squishy "maverick" Republicans capitalizing on waning Republican commitment to fiscal sanity, such a maneuver was just as likely a motion against dissenting Republicans as Democrats.

UPDATE (5:14): Despite the budget bill's passage, Tim Chapman explains how Democrats have won on a technicality for the time being.

[HT: Mark Tapscott.]