A man approached me in the street and said he wanted my wallet.
Go %$#@! yourself, I said.
"Look, this negotiation will be more pleasant and productive if you don't force me to use my gun" said the man.
If you haven't already guessed, the preceding incident never happened. As it happens, I was thinking about President Obama's supposed bipartisan health care summit with Republicans. The president is bringing a gun to the negotiations. That gun is reconciliation, a procedural maneuver never before used to enact major legislation. To be sure, it is a concealed gun, the cameras won't see it and the newsies won't mention it, but everyone in the room will know it's there. If the Republicans don't act in good faith, ie handing over their wallets, and yours, then Obama et al will pull out the rec. This is not a negotiation. It is a political mugging.
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12 comments:
Both parties have used reconciliation in the past, since the 70's (?) when it was introduced. It was even attempted as a way to pass the Clinton health bill if I'm not mistaken.
Stepping back from this one particular major legislation, look at what reconciliation actually does:
It allows a floor vote by explicitly *limiting debate and amendment possibility* (almost to the point of non-existent).
I don't care which party is trying to use it and for what, but this process subverts the sharing of ideas across the representative body. I think it makes our government weaker overall and would prefer it just didn't exist.
Clearly IMHO,
B
Alan Frumin, the most powerful man in America. Who'da thunk it?
I hate when people take away (or try to take away) MY rightfully self-appointed title!!!!
People call you Alan Frumin?
Well, let's just say there was an unfortunate mistake at the tattoo parlor and instead of "Super-Awesome!" tattooed prominently on my left pectoral, it says Alan Frumin on the bottom of my right foot.
Not worth the $45 I paid for it, I tell you what...
14 of the 19 times reconciliation was used between FY1981 - FY2005, it was used to advance Republican interests.
Stop whining.
Anon 8:29
Does this mean the next time it is used to advance a Republican initiative, you hereby waive *your* right to whine?
Just askin'
B
I should have been more specific.
Stop whining about how the use of reconciliation is "unprecendented."
It isn't.
Anon,
Gotchya, fair enough. I don't think the Republican position is that the use is "unprecedented" because clearly, it's not. I think the argument is two-fold. The argument I think is that it's use to push through "major near-trillion dollar partisan based perpetual comprehensive" public policy is unprecedented.
Granted, I say this with my initial comment above in mind, that I think the "parliamentary tool" of reconciliation has been abused (I feel the same generally about filibuster) to subvert our congressional processes of debate, amendment and forward progression of democracy. I understand reconciliation as a tool to battle congressional stagnation, but gee, wouldn't it be great if quality of character of our representatives could avoid that anyways....
Both filibuster and reconciliation has become a political partisan posturing tool (on both major parties) over the many many years and the concepts annoy me greatly. The work that congress MUST do for our country is bastardized by this type of BS.
As always,
IMHO
BradK
Yeah, see what I did there... I said the argument is two-fold, and I didn't mention the second piece of the argument.
I think point two is that Health Care Reform should not be a candidate to push through via reconciliation because this bill was assembled by one of the parties without significant representation by the other, and the importance of "getting it right" is too great to subvert the debate / amendment process.
Again, IMHO
BradK
If you want to improve the process: return to the pre-1960's filibuster rules in the Senate, eliminate House district gerrymandering, consider modifying our electoral system to include some form of proportional voting, institute congressional term limits, and/or require open primaries in all states.
Anon 5:40 -
But, CLEARLY those were problems in the past, so our congress went ahead and "fixed" them!
B
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