File this one under: The dangers of cutting and pasting, a cautionary tale.

The Senate GOP is trying was planning on trying this afternoon to attach a hostile amendment to Sen. Liz Krueger’s bill creating a
non-partisan legislative budget office.

UPDATE: Apparently, the Republicans caught their own mistake. The amendment was handed in and then immediately withdrawn, thus never making it to the floor.

It’s quite clear that the GOP lifted some of the language for its amendment directly from legislation that created the Congressional Budget Office back in 1974.

How do I know this? Well, check out P. 4, which talks about the creation of a nonpartisan legislative budget office that would be headed by a director who would be “appointed by the Speak of the House of Representatives and President pro tempore of the Senate.”

(I think Nancy Pelosi might have enough on her plate in Washington, D.C. without having to worry about policing things up here in Albany).

Not surprisingly, the Senate Democrats pounced gleefully on this gaffe, with one majority source noting snarkily:

“This proves the Senate Republicans haven’t had an original idea since Watergate. Maybe some of them carried this amendment in their briefcases when they got to the Senate, but we need new ideas to fix the old problems they left us with.”

61710 Griffo Hostile Amendment to S4526

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