On his Wednesday broadcast, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh questioned the leadership of the U.S. Senate in alleging that it was behind a push for Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) to supplant current Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions as the chairman of that committee in the new Senate next year.
According to Limbaugh, it is possible that Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate wanted Sessions out of the way as to not be a check against President Barack Obama as he will have very influential role in determining how Congress will use the power of the purse string.
Partial transcript as follows (courtesy of “The Rush Limbaugh Show”):
LIMBAUGH: There’s been all this talk — prior to the election, a little bit after the election — that Republicans had a plan. Maybe defund this. Maybe not permit some of it to be funded, paid for. Use the power of the purse. But it is clear the Republican Party leadership doesn’t want to engage in any way.
Impeachment’s off the table, and if you listen to the Republican leadership, you just don’t hear a lot of energy devoted to the idea of not allowing Obama the money necessary to implement this. There’s another development here that will cast further light on this. Jeff Sessions is the chairman of the Budget Committee in the Senate.
Jeff Sessions is also the most eloquent, consistent, outspoken critic of illegal immigration, amnesty. He is writing op-eds. He is delivering effective speeches from the floor of the Senate. He’s just all over. He has been tireless in his characterization of the danger that this portends to the country, to the future. In a way, Jeff Sessions has actually been a lone voice in the Senate. There have been others, of course. Ted Cruz comes to mind, and Mike Lee.
Well, the other bit of news today is that the Republican leadership in the Senate wants to kick Sessions off the budget committee and take the chairmanship away from him and give it to Mike Enzi of Wyoming. And, if that happens, that pretty much tells us everything we need to know about what’s going to happen with the Republicans in the Senate.
If the most effective, the most tireless, the most committed, the most eloquent anti-amnesty spokesman in the Senate is to be removed from his Budget Committee chairmanship — that is where the power of the purse would be used. And it would obviously be assumed that Sessions would be in favor of denying the administration the money necessary to implement this amnesty.
So the story is out there that they want to get rid of Sessions and remove him from the Budget Committee chairmanship and put Mike Enzi in there. Mike Enzi is a nice guy, but he’s not a babbler. So if the leadership wants to get Sessions out of the way — and again, it’s just a news story. I’ll get the source for you here as soon as I take the break. That alone tells you where the Republican leadership mind-set is on this. They want to take out the one primary voice of opposition to this and remove him from his position as chairman of the Budget Committee. That pretty much tells us that there isn’t gonna be any opposition to Obama. So no impeachment and probably limited use of spending denial, power of the purse.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
LIMBAUGH: Okay, the website on the Mike Enzi/Jeff Sessions story is ConservativeReview.com: “With Democrats control the White House for another couple of years, there are few tangible benefits for Republicans controlling the Senate. Undoubtedly the most consequential advantage of Senate control is that Republicans will fully run the budget process,” unless, of course, they punt it next month.
They could punt it by agreeing with the Democrats who have just been voted out to do a full-year budget next month. That would mean they’re just eliminating one of the two years they have to impact the federal budget. But that’s a side issue for now. “The most consequential advantage of Senate control is that Republicans will fully run the budget process, the ultimate check on executive authority that is more important now than ever with a president who has a wanton disregard for the law.
“As such, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee will play a pivotal role in holding this [Regime] accountable. Nobody is more qualified to serve in that role than the current ranking member, Jeff Sessions.” He’s not the chairman now. He’s the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, and it would be natural to assume that, as the ranking Republican, he would become the chairman next January when the Republicans take over.
However, there are these convoluted seniority rules, and they might result in Sessions not being the chairman but rather Mike Enzi.
Now, as the ranking member, the minority member on the Budget Committee the past few years, “Senator Jeff Sessions has effectively used budget point-of-orders to tactically block big spending bills, he has fought terrible budget deals proposed by both Republicans and Democrats, and he has served as a one-man think tank and stalwart against amnesty and in defense of the nation’s borders, sovereignty, workers, and taxpayers.
“Indeed, in an era when the budget process will be the last recourse against Obama’s lawlessness, there’s nobody more qualified to serve as budget chair than Jeff Sessions. But this thought process all assumes that other Republicans value the leadership qualities that Sessions has exhibited. According to Congressional Quarterly, Mike Enzi is planning to challenge Sessions for the chairmanship.
“Even though Enzi has not served as ranking minority member on the budget committee or led publicly on any budgetary issue, his seniority would bump Sessions from the position if he seeks it. And it’s yet another example of why the seniority system is a poor method for determining leaders.” So Enzi wants it. It looks like it’s his if he wants it because of seniority. But my point here is: Why does Enzi want it?
You gotta go behind closed doors to the leadership. Here’s a simple way to look at this: If the leadership wanted Sessions to have that chairmanship, he would have it. This is the only reason they wanted to win the damn election, is they wanted their precious Senate committee chairmanships, because it puts them in charge of the money for whatever number of years they’re there.
This is what they all wanted. Not wanting Jeff Sessions there is, to me… Somebody’s gonna have to correct me if I’m wrong. But if this is right, and if the Republican leadership doesn’t want Sessions running the budget committee, it means they don’t want anybody fighting Obama, pure and simple. At least for the leadership.
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