First, let me point out that "Cut, Cap, and Balance" (H.R. 2560) passed with 229 "Rs" and 5 "Ds" supporting.

And if they'd just left it there, that would have been great.  Had August 2nd come and gone with nothing done, then both Speaker Boehner and Senator McConnell could have pointed right to this and said, "See here, the Republicans did do something . . . you can spin it all you want to, but you can't hang this default on us!"

No, couldn't be happy with that.  Because the commie-MSM-driven spin machine was ratcheting up the pressure, Speaker Boehn-head decided to come up with a more "palatable" idea.

And so, the "Budget Control Act" (S. 627) passed with exactly 218 Rs 0 Ds supporting.

That's right, y'all; exactly the number of votes needed to pass . . . and not so much as one more.

I'll save you the hassle of looking it up, and just mention now that, of the Republicans in Michigan's Congressional Delegation, only Justin Amash (MI-03) voted "nay" on this absolute disaster of a bill.  His press release follows:

Amash Issues Statement After House Debt Vote

Representative Votes Against House's Budget Control Act

Washington, D.C. - Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) issued the following statement after the vote on the House's Budget Control Act of 2011:

"As I have said consistently since before I was a Representative in Congress, I will not consider voting to raise the federal government's debt ceiling unless the vote is tied to fundamental reform such as a repeal of the President's onerous healthcare legislation or passage of a well-structured balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

"I am open to a compromise that includes some of the elements of the House and Senate plans, but it must also include structural reforms that actually would pull us back from the government's looming fiscal crisis.

"The House's Budget Control Act raises the government's debt ceiling by $900 billion but requires no structural reforms and only $25 billion in cuts next year. It includes a mere pledge to pass a balanced budget amendment in exchange for authorizing another $1.6 trillion of debt next year. The pledge is not binding. It can be ignored at any time.

"It is wrong to continue to burden our children and grandchildren with trillions upon trillions of dollars of debt. Time is up. Congress cannot wait any longer to act responsibly and begin to address its addiction to reckless spending."

As of now, the United States is officially upside-down on its finances.  Never mind that Senator Harry Reid has promised to kill this bill the second that it arrives in the Senate; never mind that C.C.B. was all that the House needed to do, and that it had plenty of support.  Nope, these idiots had to go and pass a bill in which the only thing bi-partisan about it was the opposition to the bill!  Did Boehn-head learn nothing from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?