I guess the President still hasn’t explained his healthcare plan adequately because there continues to be massive opposition where it counts most; the opinion of the American people. The healthcare summit was supposed to garner support for the Healthcare Reform Bill but curiously, the American people still reject it by a margin of 2 to 1 with most saying that the President should scrap the bill and start over in a truly non-partisan and transparent process. Most polls show that using reconciliation to pass the current bill would be disastrous for Democrats and should that occur, the 2010 mid-term election would be a referendum on the public’s disenchantment with the underhanded processes used by Democrats to force legislation through not just around the opposition of Republicans but moderate Democrats as well.
Main Street America may not have studied political science at Harvard but they do know when something smells bad. Senator John McCain raised a good point at the healthcare summit and rather than answer that point, the President chose to remind McCain that the campaign was over and the election results were in. The point McCain brought up was that if this bill is so good, then why did Congressional leadership have to buy the votes of so many Democrats? With the Democrats holding a majority in the house and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate for all of 2009, any good bill would have passed easily without a single Republican vote. Truthfully, if it were a good bill, there are an awful lot of moderate Republicans that would have voted for it too. It didn’t pass because it is a lousy bill and everyone knows it.
Now that public rejection of the healthcare bill swept Republican Scott Brown into the Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Progressive Democrats are once again planning to use reconciliation to pass the bill with a simple majority; thwarting the appropriate process that requires a sixty vote majority. On Tuesday, the President sent a perfunctory letter to Republican Congressional leaders stating that he planned to incorporate four Republican ideas into the healthcare bill to gain their support. Of course the President knew his offer would be rejected because the four ideas he said he would include would not change the offensive nature of the bill. Honestly, it was never his intention to gain Republican support; it was merely his intention to be able to say that he tried to at his next photo op.
Republicans remain opposed to the bill because it is an issue of fundamental values. How could a Republican support a bill that would in fact, endanger the Republic? Adding forty pages of low priority Republican ideas to a twenty-seven hundred page tax and spend debacle does not make it less of a debacle. Let’s face it, you can’t add forty pounds of sugar to a ton and a half of salt and call it candy. Truthfully, the talk of reconciliation is being blamed on Republican opposition to the legislation but is that really the issue? I’m sure with some arm twisting, threats of base closures and other funding tricks they could have convinced at least one Republican to vote for this mess. The truth is that if Scott Brown had not won the election they would probably have had to use reconciliation anyway. Even now, there are questions as to whether or not they will have the votes they need because of defections within their own party. Despite the rants of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, moderate Democrats still have to answer to their constituents and their constituents are telling them to vote no or else.
Harry Reid and Barrack Obama have both said that use of reconciliation to forward the Healthcare Bill was perfectly acceptable and that Republican had used this measure numerous times in the past. What Harry Reid didn’t tell you was that every time reconciliation was used by a Republican administration that there were vociferous cries of tyranny from the minority Party which happened to be the same Democrats that are now considering the measure appropriate and correct. What they also failed to mention was that reconciliation had only been used as intended by the act that formed it, The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 which can be read in text form at - http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/02C17B.txt .
So what is reconciliation? During the 1972 election campaign, President Nixon asked Congress for authority to cut Federal spending at his own discretion to remain under the proposed $250 billion ceiling for fiscal year 1973. Congress refused to grant such an open-ended grant of authority. Congress and the White House ultimately clashed sharply over President Nixon's aggressive impoundment of (refusal to spend) funds appropriated by Congress. In 1972, as a result of the battle between the Congress and the President, Congress created a Joint Study Committee on Budget Control, composed of members from the House and Senate appropriations and tax committees as well as two members from each Chamber. Included in the committee’s recommendations was a means of improving “the opportunity for the Congress to examine the budget from an overall point of view, together with a congressional system of deciding priorities.'' The report went on to state that it was "important to recognize that the budget deficit be no larger (or the surplus no smaller) than the Congress considers appropriate for economic or other reasons.''
In response to both the frustration generated by the fractured congressional budget process and the perceived encroachment of the executive branch into the budgetary turf of Congress, Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The major purposes of this Act were to reassert the congressional role in budgeting, to add some centralizing influence to the Federal budget process, and to constrain the use of impoundments.
One of the most important developments to emerge from the 1974 Act has been reconciliation, a process that allows Congress to change existing laws to conform with the tax and spending levels established in a proposed budget. This developed into an important procedure for implementing the policy decisions and assumptions as enunciated in a budget resolution; a policy that was not envisioned when the Budget Act was written. Under the original design of the 1974 Budget Act, reconciliation had a fairly narrow purpose. It was expected to be used in conjunction with a second resolution, was to apply to a single fiscal year and be directed primarily at spending and revenue legislation acted on between the adoption of the first and second budget resolutions.
Regardless of the rants of Harry Reid, reconciliation has never before used by either Party to pass legislation that hasn’t already been presented to the President. It was meant to move important legislation beyond the roadblock of a reluctant President and the subservient members of his Party in Congress. This is clearly a violation of ethical behavior on the part of Reid, Pelosi and Obama to mutate a clearly defined budgetary process to enact unpopular legislation.
Again, the use of this legislative “trick” to move the bill forward is not being used to bypass the Republican Party. It is being used to bypass moderate Democrats that realize what this bill means and are as reluctant to vote for it as the Republicans are. Unfortunately for those moderates, the openly tyrannical antics of the Democratic leadership and Progressive Democrats will damage their prospects for reelection as well. The damage this legislation will bring cannot remain hidden once it is past and that is when those that refused to believe the warnings will be aghast at what has been done. It is nothing less than the creation of a government agency that will have all the authority it needs to unilaterally control ever aspect of healthcare in this country.
Paul
Main Street America may not have studied political science at Harvard but they do know when something smells bad. Senator John McCain raised a good point at the healthcare summit and rather than answer that point, the President chose to remind McCain that the campaign was over and the election results were in. The point McCain brought up was that if this bill is so good, then why did Congressional leadership have to buy the votes of so many Democrats? With the Democrats holding a majority in the house and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate for all of 2009, any good bill would have passed easily without a single Republican vote. Truthfully, if it were a good bill, there are an awful lot of moderate Republicans that would have voted for it too. It didn’t pass because it is a lousy bill and everyone knows it.
Now that public rejection of the healthcare bill swept Republican Scott Brown into the Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Progressive Democrats are once again planning to use reconciliation to pass the bill with a simple majority; thwarting the appropriate process that requires a sixty vote majority. On Tuesday, the President sent a perfunctory letter to Republican Congressional leaders stating that he planned to incorporate four Republican ideas into the healthcare bill to gain their support. Of course the President knew his offer would be rejected because the four ideas he said he would include would not change the offensive nature of the bill. Honestly, it was never his intention to gain Republican support; it was merely his intention to be able to say that he tried to at his next photo op.
Republicans remain opposed to the bill because it is an issue of fundamental values. How could a Republican support a bill that would in fact, endanger the Republic? Adding forty pages of low priority Republican ideas to a twenty-seven hundred page tax and spend debacle does not make it less of a debacle. Let’s face it, you can’t add forty pounds of sugar to a ton and a half of salt and call it candy. Truthfully, the talk of reconciliation is being blamed on Republican opposition to the legislation but is that really the issue? I’m sure with some arm twisting, threats of base closures and other funding tricks they could have convinced at least one Republican to vote for this mess. The truth is that if Scott Brown had not won the election they would probably have had to use reconciliation anyway. Even now, there are questions as to whether or not they will have the votes they need because of defections within their own party. Despite the rants of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, moderate Democrats still have to answer to their constituents and their constituents are telling them to vote no or else.
Harry Reid and Barrack Obama have both said that use of reconciliation to forward the Healthcare Bill was perfectly acceptable and that Republican had used this measure numerous times in the past. What Harry Reid didn’t tell you was that every time reconciliation was used by a Republican administration that there were vociferous cries of tyranny from the minority Party which happened to be the same Democrats that are now considering the measure appropriate and correct. What they also failed to mention was that reconciliation had only been used as intended by the act that formed it, The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 which can be read in text form at - http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/02C17B.txt .
So what is reconciliation? During the 1972 election campaign, President Nixon asked Congress for authority to cut Federal spending at his own discretion to remain under the proposed $250 billion ceiling for fiscal year 1973. Congress refused to grant such an open-ended grant of authority. Congress and the White House ultimately clashed sharply over President Nixon's aggressive impoundment of (refusal to spend) funds appropriated by Congress. In 1972, as a result of the battle between the Congress and the President, Congress created a Joint Study Committee on Budget Control, composed of members from the House and Senate appropriations and tax committees as well as two members from each Chamber. Included in the committee’s recommendations was a means of improving “the opportunity for the Congress to examine the budget from an overall point of view, together with a congressional system of deciding priorities.'' The report went on to state that it was "important to recognize that the budget deficit be no larger (or the surplus no smaller) than the Congress considers appropriate for economic or other reasons.''
In response to both the frustration generated by the fractured congressional budget process and the perceived encroachment of the executive branch into the budgetary turf of Congress, Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The major purposes of this Act were to reassert the congressional role in budgeting, to add some centralizing influence to the Federal budget process, and to constrain the use of impoundments.
One of the most important developments to emerge from the 1974 Act has been reconciliation, a process that allows Congress to change existing laws to conform with the tax and spending levels established in a proposed budget. This developed into an important procedure for implementing the policy decisions and assumptions as enunciated in a budget resolution; a policy that was not envisioned when the Budget Act was written. Under the original design of the 1974 Budget Act, reconciliation had a fairly narrow purpose. It was expected to be used in conjunction with a second resolution, was to apply to a single fiscal year and be directed primarily at spending and revenue legislation acted on between the adoption of the first and second budget resolutions.
Regardless of the rants of Harry Reid, reconciliation has never before used by either Party to pass legislation that hasn’t already been presented to the President. It was meant to move important legislation beyond the roadblock of a reluctant President and the subservient members of his Party in Congress. This is clearly a violation of ethical behavior on the part of Reid, Pelosi and Obama to mutate a clearly defined budgetary process to enact unpopular legislation.
Again, the use of this legislative “trick” to move the bill forward is not being used to bypass the Republican Party. It is being used to bypass moderate Democrats that realize what this bill means and are as reluctant to vote for it as the Republicans are. Unfortunately for those moderates, the openly tyrannical antics of the Democratic leadership and Progressive Democrats will damage their prospects for reelection as well. The damage this legislation will bring cannot remain hidden once it is past and that is when those that refused to believe the warnings will be aghast at what has been done. It is nothing less than the creation of a government agency that will have all the authority it needs to unilaterally control ever aspect of healthcare in this country.
Paul
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