Reid Considers Breaking Out His 'Hide the Ball' Budget Fun Set
Uh-oh, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) ... it looks like Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) may just ignore your warning not to play "hide the reconciliation ball" during the upcoming congressional budget talks.
Reid told reporters earlier today that he would not rule out using "reconciliation" language to shield health care reform from a Republican filibuster later this year. Roll Call reports the Democratic leader's response: "Let's see what happens in the next three weeks, in the next month ... We need to do health care, and we are going to do health care."
For those of you who are just getting up to speed on the budget debate, here's a quick recap:
The Senate's budget does not include reconciliation, which was used by the GOP to push through the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, but the House's budget does -- and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is making no bones about her desire to fast-track health care this year.
Gregg and his fellow GOPers are raising a stink over Reid's ability to pull a fast one on the Republicans by passing a Senate budget without reconciliation, then coming out with a budget conference report that looks like the House's version.
Conference deals can't be filibustered, which means that the GOP would then be out of options to stop the Democrats from negotiating amongst themselves on health care, if they so desired.
Playing "hide the reconciliation ball" with Senate Republicans would assuredly improve Reid's stock with his party's progressive base, which has long urged him to use a stronger hand in quashing GOP filibusters.
But there are also some compelling policy reasons not to filibuster-proof the health care bill: reconciliation would limit the measure to just 20 hours of debate and require the reform bill to sunset after five years, which would put a big, honking target on the new health care system's back for Democrats to defend all over again in 2014.
Josh
Matt
Eric
After five years no one is going to want to go back to the old system except the lunatic fringe (who still want to kill Social Security). Do it.
March 26, 2009 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep.
Do it.
March 26, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
You never know, it's a compelling reasoning not to use reconciliation, however I rather have it for 5 years than none.
March 26, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. If in five years the GOP wants to be the party that tried to take away health care, let 'em.
March 26, 2009 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah... I don't think people grasp the Sunset issue:
It won't get Sunset.
Once you have National Health Care with all the millions of people who are out of work, are going to lose jobs, or long ago lost their health care... there is no way in hell that it's *ever* going to be taken away.
The GOP knows this. They are deathly afraid of this. They never, ever, never want to run on the issue of Taking Away Health Care. It's death.
So they have been fight the battle in the other direction:
Prevent National Health Care from happening in the first place.
National Health Care is virginity politics. Everyone knows that once it's "lost", it's gone for good.
So the GOP, Big Pharma and Big Insurance are going to the matresses to prevent it from being lost.
The Dems *must* wrap their tiny minds around these concepts. Win Now and it's not going away.
It certainly can get screwed with in the future, as the GOP has screwed with lots of things in Washington. But like Social Security, it will be next to impossible to get rid of.
This is really something the Obama Admin and Congressional Leadership has to go to the matresses with themselves. It's a make/break issue for them, and they need to expend every last bit of political capital to get it passed, and passed well (rather than half ass). Let the GOP be the party of No National Health Care and spew their Socialist bullshit. Hang that millstone around their heads for a generation and watch them sink when an entire generation remembers that it was the Dems who gave them health care when the sky was falling.
Hide the ball, then pull it out front. Dare the GOP to vote again the issue heading into the 2010 Senate races. Pull the same stunt that Bush did with the Iraq Resolutions: put it out there to vote in October 2010, and make them literally filabuster a bill to make Health Care permanent.
John
March 26, 2009 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
News flash: Reid grows a pair!
March 26, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Better wait and see; he might just have stuffed something down his pants. Reid has pretend to have a pair before, only to go limp when it mattered....
March 26, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
He better hide the ball. Dont let Republicans keep fing up the country.
March 26, 2009 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thing is we could make it longer just in 2 years if we have the votes. Budgets ARE yearly.
March 26, 2009 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fun title.
Where do I get my fun set?
March 26, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
They'll never use it, but it's a nice threat to have in order to force the GOP to negotiate in good faith. If they want to be obstructionists about the whole ordeal like they were for the stimulus, well then the Dems will bypass them.
March 26, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's looking more and more to me like they will. Pelosi has been sounding pretty strong. Even wimpy Harry Reid (kinda).
Further, it looks like the White House is orchestrating using budget reconciliation to get a lot of stuff through. Check out this excerpt from today's TPMDC Morning Roundup...
Door-to-door lobbying is pretty heavy-duty stuff. You don't blow that political capital on just a budget. But you might if it's a Trojan Horse for getting programs you want through the otherwise filibuster-armed gauntlet.
In theory. But as 718 points out, new budgets are made yearly. Next year's budget could have a reconciliation provision that removes sunset on this year's budget items. And Senate GOOPers are likely to be fewer in number after 2010.
March 26, 2009 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
We don't need reconciliation with the Republicans. We need a reckoning.
March 26, 2009 8:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
But what about bipartisanship? Don't we want to make nice and kissey kiss with our esteemed coleagues from the GOP. Oh yeah they're the guys who just told the US economy to go eat shit an' die.
Yes health care by hook or by crook. There is a reason the GOP has fought it tooth and nail for sixty years. They KNOW that a real American health care system will be the stake in the elephant's heart. The moment is now. Don't blow this!
p.s. Dear Dem Congress: Screw the insurance companies. They've been screwing us long enough. America can't afford those leaches anymore. Let them get some kind of productive work.
March 27, 2009 5:08 AM | Reply | Permalink