| The Democrats are poised to pass the health care bill using a process known as reconciliation, which is essentially a legal (it's codified law, which you can find here) way to sidestep a threatened filibuster by the minority party in the U.S. Senate.
And because 60 is the new 50 for the Republicans, they're all spinning the Democrats' use of reconciliation as some new thing that has never ever happened. For instance, here's the Spinning Sinning Senator David Vitter:
"Well, the president talked a great deal about bipartisanship during the health care summit last week, but it's now clear that was just to distract attention away from his purely partisan strategy - forcing Obamacare down our throats using the unprecedented reconciliation process."
Unprecedented, Senator? Then tell me what these votes were:
The Economic Growth and Tax Reconciliation Act, #118, 5/16/2001
Conference Report on the Economic Growth and Tax Reconciliation Act, #149, 5/26/2001
The Jobs and Growth Reconciliation Tax Act, #182, 5/9/2003
Conference Report on the Jobs and Growth Reconciliation Tax Act, #225, 5/23/2003
The Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005, #10, 2/2/2006
Conference Report on the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005, #118, 5/11/2006
The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005*, #303, 11/3/2005
On the Motion to Concur with House Amendment to Deficit Reduction Act of 2005*, #363, 12/14/2005
- The last two votes were on the same bill, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, because there were differences between the House version and the Senate version of the bill, which cut Medicare by $6.4 billion and increased premiums for seniors on Medicare, in addition to delivering the largest cut to the student loan program in its history. If you click on the vote #'s, you'll notice that the Measure Title states: "An original bill to provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 202(a) of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2006 (H. Con. Res. 95).
If y'all notice the bold text there says RECONCILIATION, that's because the Republicans, during the era of that great uniter, George W. Bush, were forced to use reconciliation because they couldn't get a supermajority of the Senate to go along with their plans to bankrupt the United States Treasury while giving tax breaks to their rich friends. And if you click on the #'s up there, you'll notice that the Spinning Sinning Senator David Vitter voted YEA ON EVERY SINGLE RECONCILIATION BILL DURING THE BUSH 43 ADMINISTRATION.
Oh, did I forget to mention that those bills put the United States government $1 trillion, 769 billion, 700 million dollars in debt? Yeah, that's right, that's the Spinning Sinning Senator showing his concern on the wasteful spending undertaken by the U.S. Government during W's Administrations, all the while subverting the "60 is the new 50" majority rule he now espouses.
So, let's recap the Vitter rules ... it's okay to plunge the U.S. Government into debt when the Republicans are in charge, but when the Democrats do it, it's bad. And it's normal to use reconciliation to pass a bill, so long as the Republicans are in charge, but when the Democrats threaten to do the same thing, it's "unprecedented." I guess It's OK If You Are Republican, or in shorthand, IOKIYAR. |
