My column from this morning's Roll Call explains why reconciliation, a subpart of the congressional budget process, and a sub-subpart of the legislative process, isn't what we should be arguing about.

Can We Please Stop Talking About Reconciliation?

My fellow Roll Call columnist Norman Ornstein was one of the authors of a truly excellent chart on reconciliation that appeared in the New York Times on Sunday.

This almost full-page chart (click on the multimedia box) from today's New York Times (way too big to reproduce here) by Congress experts Norm Ornstein, Tom Mann, and Raffaela Wakeman answers virtually every question there is to ask about the past uses of reconciliation. 

The chart shows that, as I posted on February 28, reconciliation has been used when Democrats and Republicans were in the majority; to increase and decrease the deficit; to increase and decrease spending and revenues; and to create, expand, and decrease programs.

In other words, as far as reconciliation and health care is concerned, move along; there's nothing see here.

This column by E.J. Dionne, Jr. from yesterday's Washington Post uses a word -- lie -- that Andrew didn't use when he posted on the same subject three days, but otherwise it makes the same points about the Republican hypocrisy and propaganda efforts on using reconciliation.  Like Andrew's post, it's a solid and hard-hitting piece.

Using reconciliation for health care changes the outlook for what's ahead on other issues too, especially extending the tax cuts put in place during the Bush administration.  My column from this morning's Roll Call explains why.

Health Care Debate Makes New Budget More Likely This Year

March 2, 2010

It was only a few weeks ago that budget process watchers, implementers and aficionados were all saying it was going to be difficult for Congress to adopt a budget resolution this year. That’s still true, of course; even in the best of times budget resolutions are very hard to get through the House and Senate, and this is anything but the best of times.

It's clear from all the comments on CG&G and elsewhere that Republican and Democratic commenters are refusing to acknowledge the basic facts about reconciliation.  So here are several factual statements. 

Get over it.  Stop denying it.  Move on.

1.  Reconciliation is not a rule or an attempt to get around the rules; it's a law -- Public Law 93-344 (The Congressional Budget Act of 1974)  to be exact.

2.  Reconciliation has been used by both Democrats and Republicans when they were in the majority.

3.  When they have been in the majority, Democrats and Republicans have both argued that using reconciliation was proper.  Whey they have been in the minority both parties have maintained that it was improper for the other even to think about it.

4.  The fact that one party has used reconciliation more than another is interesting but not instructive in any way.  The bottom line, again, is that they've both used it repeatedly.

5.  Reconciliation has been used for both major and not-so-major changes.  It's also been used to increase and decrease the deficit.

Pete's post below on reconciliation and healthcare reform takes a far too strict look at what could and could not be included in a health care reform bill considered under reconciliation rules.

Pete's correct that the primary consideration is whether a provision would have an impact on the federal budget.  He's also absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it correct that the Byrd Rule was created to prevent "extraneous" (that is, having no impact on the budget whatsoever) provisions from being included.  I recall one of the things that got Senator Byrd (D-WV) so exercised was the inclusion of a major change in the broadcast fairness doctrine, which had no budget implications of any kind, in a reconciliation bill.

But Pete's very strict interpretation of the rules for what qualifies as an extraneous provision is..well...far too strict.

"Reconciliation" is getting a lot of attention in Washington lately. Most understand a reconciliation bill can pass the Senate by majority vote after 20 hours of debate, but that's often where the understanding stops. Reconciliation originated in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 as an optional means of changing (mostly) entitlement spending, but not Social Security, and taxes to achieve the deficit target set forth in the budget resolution. Because a reconciliation bill has a high likelihood of becoming law, it quickly became a magnet for extraneous amendments, which Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) deterred in 1985 with the Byrd Rule, now Section 313 of the Budget Act, which lays out six criteria for determining what is extraneous. Implementing these rules in the Senate has become so complicated that no one can be entirely sure of what will emerge until the Senate Parliamentarian has ruled.

Via Ezra Klein, take a look at this post by Sarah Binder at The Monkey Cage that explains reconciliation in plain English.

Sarah's explanation is worth reading, but that's not what made my day.  This picture of Sarah holding an "I Won A 2002 Budget Battle" coffee mug and the fact that she used her many wins in a budget trivia contest I created as the reason we should have confidence in her analysis is what made my world seem just a little brighter.

Here's the back story.

Over at Political Wire, the usually bipartisan and absolutely worth-reading Taegan Goddard uses GOP talking points instead of facts to describe budget reconciliation.

Taegan...Reconciliation isn't a "loophole" as you states in your headline.  It's actually a provision in the Congressional Budget Act (Public Law 93-344) and a long-established part of federal budget procedures.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

My "Fiscal Fitness" column from today's Roll Call.

Reconciliation for Health Care Should Not Be an Issue

April 21, 2009
By Stan Collender
Roll Call Contributing Writer   

How is it possible that the part of the Congressional budget process designed to bring people together and create closure is creating so much angst and leaving so much up in the air this year?