Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Troy McCullough, Tim Davis, Jennifer Holland, Kathleen Carlson and Jenny Hykes.

You have to hand it to the Republicans in Congress. They orchestrated a vote on an issue on which they could not lose. Even though they did lose, they won.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted down a bill that would amend the Constitution to require two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress to raise taxes.

This bill was extremely threatening to the principle of democracy through the power of the majority by requiring two-thirds of both houses to be in agreement on a tax hike.

And with there being a bi-partisan agreement to balance the budget in the next seven years, there would be massive spending cuts had this bill passed, since tax hikes couldn’t be passed without the two-thirds vote. This slashing in programs would ultimately harm the poor, who often are forced to depend on government services.

Balancing the budget in this manner most certainly would have come at expense of America’s poor, who apparently have become the Republican target for social progress: the destruction of America’s poor.

Also, this bill did not go through the proper Congressional committees for the entire House to vote on a matter altering the Constitution. Such disrespect for current rules and regulations should come as no surprise; the GOP has proven itself incapable of adhering to initiatives even it has passed.

After taking control of the House last year, Republicans imposed a condition requiring a three-fifths majority to raise federal income taxes. They have repeatedly waived this requirement to pass measures such as Medicare reform, health-care reform and capital-gains taxation. In other words, rules are to be followed only if they serve the needs of the GOP. With the power to ignore their own measures taken away by their proposed Constitutional amendment, it would have been interesting (and disastrous) to watch the Republicansattempt to skirt the Constitution. So the failure of this measure is a positive, is it not?

Well, yes and no. The Republicans surely will use this failure as a political tool in this year’s election. The bill was opposed by a majority of Democrats (160) and a smattering of Republicans (16).

Come serious campaign time, Republicans plan on dragging out this failed initiative as an example of how Democrats blocked a bill that would make it harder to raise your taxes.

You can guarantee that there will be little mention that the bill was contrary to the principle of democracy through majority rule, that it didn’t go through proper Congressional channels and, if recent history is any indication, that it would be unworkable. All that will be said, and remembered, is that the Democrats wanted to continue to make it “easy”to raise taxes. Remember what you’ve read here come November. Somebody has to.