Reconciliation — Playing Parliamentary Games with America’s Future (Guest Voice)
Reconciliation — Playing Parliamentary Games with America’s Future
by Michael Reagan
Well, the not-so-surprising news of the week out of Washington is that President Obama is now calling on Congress to schedule a straight vote on the Democrats’ health care reform measure.
The new twist is that Democrats now recognize that their flawed plan, which has been met with stiff resistance from congressional Republicans and the American people, can only be passed on a pure party-line vote. So after a one-day, photo-op summit, President Obama has decided the time for negotiation has passed.
Now, to the majority of Americans who make their living outside of Washington, this idea of having a straight “up and down vote” sounds straightforward, but in reality it means that Congress will use the controversial “reconciliation” procedure to pass the Senate bill through the House for the Senate to “fix” later, ignoring the wide differences between the two bills which have currently passed. In short, it’s a loophole, and it’s all the president has left.
Today, an amazingly low percentage of Americans actually support passage of these reforms. The RealClearPolitics health care poll average shows a full 50.3 percent of Americans against it, with just 40.8 percent in favor. A Quinnipiac poll says a mere 35 percent endorse the plan.
These numbers would make a reasonable person think that the administration would not want to ram-through a bill with such great significance to our nation by merely relying on a procedural opening. But it again appears that Democrats think they know better than the vast majority of American people. What’s new?
And what will most assuredly haunt the president over the course of this year and leading into the 2012 election is the fact that this effort is in direct contradiction to the president’s previous campaign promises.
While running for office, Barack Obama repeatedly said that on the “big ticket” issues, such as health care, it was vital that policy be made on a consensus basis with at least a 60 percent majority rather than settling for partisan voting blocks. Having lost his “60 percent” majority of liberal senators, it did not take the president long to change tunes.
Mr. President, do you recall saying back in 2007 that “Maybe you eke out a victory of fifty plus one, but then you can’t govern”? Well, I guess you are now admitting what many of us feared all along. You are not prepared to govern!
In President Obama’s prepared remarks, he tries to paint himself and members of his party as heroes who push through this “long and wrenching debate” and don’t “give up because the politics are hard.”
Listening to him, you might actually be fooled into thinking that he’s the outsider pushing against the machine rather than the president pushing against the increasingly vocal — and obvious — voice of the people. And the people are shouting, “Stop!”
His remarks also read, “At stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem. The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future.”
He’s got it half right. That is what the American people want to know. But the president cannot show us he is looking out for our interests and our future by forcing a quick, partisan vote on an issue that will impact not only this time but generations to come. This is especially true since he was so adamant in his opposition to using this very parliamentary measure in governance during his campaign.
And he cannot show us that he is listening when polls show that only 35-40 percent of Americans support this bill.
Mike Reagan, the elder son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is spokesperson for The Reagan Nation and chairman and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation (www.reaganlegacyfoundation.org). ©2010 Mike Reagan. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate — and is licensed to run on TMV in full.
10 Responses to “Reconciliation — Playing Parliamentary Games with America’s Future (Guest Voice)”
Excuse me, but is this an example of The IM-moderate Voice, or a hint at the future direction of The Moderate Voice? I missed the memo . . .
it means that Congress will use the controversial “reconciliation” procedure to pass the Senate bill through the House for the Senate to “fix” later,
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Funny, during the Cheney administration, reconciliation was anything but controversial. In fact, it was used multiple times to run this country into the ground financially. Here are some of the medical-related things this former Congresses have passed under “controversial” reconcilation:
For 30 years, major changes to health care laws have passed via the budget reconciliation process. Here are a few examples:
1982 — TEFRA: The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act first opened Medicare to HMOs
1986 — COBRA: The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act allowed people who were laid off to keep their health coverage, and stopped hospitals from dumping ER patients unable to pay for their care
1987 — OBRA '87: Added nursing home protection rules to Medicare and Medicaid, created no-fault vaccine injury compensation program
1989 — OBRA '89: Overhauled doctor payment system for Medicare, created new federal agency on research and quality of care
1990 — OBRA '90: Added cancer screenings to Medicare, required providers to notify patients about advance directives and living wills, expanded Medicaid to all kids living below poverty level, required drug companies to provide discounts to Medicaid
1993 — OBRA '93: created federal vaccine funding for all children
1996 — Welfare Reform: Separated Medicaid from welfare
1997 — BBA: The Balanced Budget Act created the state-federal childrens' health program called CHIP
2005 — DRA: The Deficit Reduction Act reduced Medicaid spending, allowed parents of disabled children to buy into Medicaid
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?st…
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Again, why worry. If the dem's “controversial” passing of this health-related Bill is so doomed to failure, why all the fuss? Sit back, smile and watch the dems go down. The GOP's deep concern for whether or not democrats will be able to get wins next Fall is touching but ain't gonna win an Oscar..
And Mitch McConnell warning Democrats that their support of HCR will hurt them in the next election: PRICELESS. Yes, as a Democrat, I'll take my election strategy from Mitch . . . and do the opposite.
Actually I think it's a little surprising the numbers are as good as they are considering all the misinformation that has been sowed by the GOP and their media minions. I'm sure MR and those who see things through a similarly distorted lens are going to be terribly disappointed if their fail meme fails.
*yawn*.
someone call me when something worthwhile happens.
” Mike Reagan’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc. . . .”
How very appropriate.
Hey, maybe someone should point out that not forcing the bill on a partisan vote will bring big, unforeseen changes and effects to the entire HC sector.
It's almost as if they think defeating Obama on this would bring anything but simply a different flavor of big effects.
If the maneuver can be misused for welfare reform, it can be misused for health care “reform” that the Dems desperately are seeking now. That doesn't make it right, and of course it isn't. Byrd has said so to his fellow Dems; they'll still try it, probably — they're so desperate. The legislation is poor and it hopefully will harm the Dems in November (as should the implied threat of more leftward overreach in other areas — with the unions, with immigration “reform,” more eco-loony energy legislation, all of it).
If it's misused, we'll be blaming morally challenged libs and Dems in the future when the Republicans do the same thing. You broke the levees, you created the flooding, it's your fault (even if you cannot understand what's obvious, and you stare there dumbfounded with mouths open more wide than your oft-dishonest Pinocchio noses are long) if someday the left-running flood gets changed to right-running.
At this point, we have desperate Dems in the predicament fully of their own making, conflicted among themselves about bad legislation, scrambling to find votes that are far from reliable as of this time. Good luck, clowns. You created your mess and your problems; now work them out.
You know, DLS, I might normally agree with you. Truly, I have been somewhat ambivalent on this bill. I am concerned that it will cost more in the end (even while reducing deficits for a few years). The thing is that BOTH the house and senate already passed healthcare bills that don't differ by much. Because of the ridiculousness of the process, instead of just reconciling the differences, the congress has to pass the Senate bill, and then do a reconcilliation process to make some minor tweaks. That is a very different thing than using reconcilliation to pass a brand new big bill. It is a very stupid thing, too. If you can get a supermajority to agree on 90-someodd percent of a bill (with a few minor sticking points) then it shouldn't take a supermajority to resolve the minor sticking points. The fact that so very many opportunities for obstruction are built in at every turn isn't a good thing. There does need to be opportunity for obstruction / brakes in the system, but our current system takes this to an extreme that isn't healthy. It provides too many opportunities for politicians to devolve responsibility.
“I might normally agree with you”
BUT … no. You'd never stoop that low. [grin] You're not as desperate as the Congre-Dems are.
“our current system takes this to an extreme that isn't healthy”
Well, I'm not going to rush to blast the filibuster (yes, it has been abused by the GOP, something that is even more relegated to being oblivious now as well as obvious as the misuse of reconcilation is now likely to be). There's a place for a supermajority (60 per cent, two-thirds, or the value I like to mention from time to time, “phi”). What matters to me most now is the content of the bill and what it means for more, other bills as with immigration reform, “card check” and union influence* in the Dem effort this year, and so on.
But the roadblock is something you may see get worse. The Dems have to progress or be written off as ineffective, at a time of their most power ever. The GOP gets gripes for obstructing, but now it faces the advantage and even the necessity of being even more obstructive, as much as they can be.
* Union influence: Note and file something if you are at least marginally inclined. The event this past week with the child at the air traffic control microphone, with the big silly blow-up (and commentators like Bill Press who are years late in imaginging a child at the controls of an airliner — this isn't Russia where such a thing did happen, and the pilot's teen child crashed the airliner and killed people) has the union cracking down harder, it seems, on the parent who took his kid to work than even anyone in Washington who would be motived to be especially thuggish. (There's a post-9/11 legitimate concern n for security of air traffic control facilities, spy-sabotage threats, etc; as the pilots often affected had demonstrated, this child on the microphone was fun and funny, no excuse for overreacting stupidly.) Why is the union so harsh? It may be compatibility with the Obama administration as well as pushing for union-favoring acts this year. The air traffic controllers' union has one of the best pay and benefits arrangements in existence, in an already-scandalous and unsustainble federal employee arrangement — pay needs reduction and retirements need drastic reduction in the next 10-20 years; we won't tolerate a special highly privileged class of early and lavish retirees — and Obama has been one of the people acting strongly on behalf of the union in the past (taking care if I recall to make sure controllers in Chicago were recognized as specially deserving of support), such as in the union's conflicts of some kind (I don't recall the details now) in a labor-style dispute with the Bush administration.