Reconciliation

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.