Why Fight Reconciliation?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the process, but assuming the House passes the Senate version, what are Republican senators hoping to gain by slowing or stopping the reconciliation bill? All they would accomplish that I can see is keeping in the hand-outs for Nebraska and Louisiana and leaving the abortion coverage exclusion less concrete. All things they rail against in the Senate bill. So what does this get them? Not rhetorical at all here -- I just can't seem to get a good answer to the question from any of the news sites, and hoping someone here has an answer.
posted by QueensGuy @ 12:16 PM
24 Comments:
Everyone has different interests in reconciliation. The Dems should hate it as much as the Repubs.
One reason for any principled person to oppose it (i.e., no one in the Senate) is that this tears up the process of reconciliation, which was meant to quickly reconcile differences in budgets between the House and Senate bill, not to slip through unpopular measures while making massive changes in content.
Then, of course, and I don't see why your friends can't point out this obvious reason, all Republicans should oppose reconciliation because voting for it, in any way, gives the appearance, and for that matter, the actuality, of supporting a bad bill. I suppose you could argue we're making a bill that destroys the country a little less worse, but I wouldn't think that's good enough.
Finally, the reconciliation process will be controlled by Democrats, since it only needs 51 votes, so it's not going to be there to help Republicans. Better to fight it.
You're forgetting a good political but very cynical reason. Improving the bill will make it more palatable to the American public, and much harder to run against in upcoming elections.
Or to put it less cynically, the bill will still be horrendous, but Democrats could then say they fixed the problems that were bothering the American public so much, and close ranks.
Anon 1, I'm not suggesting that any Republican Senator should consider voting in favor of the reconciliation bill -- I'm just questioning the value of throwing up procedural roadblocks to the vote. Once the House votes yes on the Senate bill, there's definitely something that will be signed by the President. I'm trying to find non-cynical reasons beyond the one proposed by Anon 2, as well as the theatrical value of being seen to fight every step of the way, even after you've certainly lost.
Also, I'm not sure what your basis is for saying the changes in content in reconciliation will be "massive." Can you cite an example or two of something that will be massively different? I thought they were mostly eliminating some of the more offensive porkbarrel provisions, no?
Ha! Just noticed that my daughter was signed in and I commented using her account by accident. Veronica = QueensGuy for this thread.
I don't think it's debatable that these are changes of substance. Reconciliation is used (usually on popular bills that have over 60 votes, by the way) for basic and simple monetary scoring fixes. The bill has been passed, now let's take care of some technical details, not create a new bill. Getting rid of parts of the bill like the special deals, or changing what can be funded or not, are major changes which are not what reconciliation is supposed to be about. Basically, they're using a financial process to change the actual bill.
So then you're conceding that it's nothing other than removing pork and clarifying anti-abortion language, but will stand by the description of those changes as "massive"? Ok.
Standing up for the principle of what reconciliation really means?
Now there's something for a bumper sticker.
This is massively changing the bill. Taking out certain provisions and putting others in. Saying you can no longer fund abortions, etc. The kind of changes that allow some to vote for it, or prevent others from voting for it. What other kid of changes do you expect? It's not going to change into a war resolution.
Good point, anonymous 4. The procedures our lawmakes follow are a joke. Let's just ignore them whenever they're inconvenient.
Democratic position: "all (but two) of us think the pork in the bill is a bad idea and should be removed, and the bill should be as clear as possible that it won't fund abortions. Republicans agree with both of those points in principle, but would filibuster a law to correct them in the normal procedure because they'd prefer, for purely cynical and political reasons, to have the pork and abortion issues as election arguments. The American people are better off without the pork and with the abortion rule clear. Using reconciliation is a lawful tool to accomplish that."
Republican position: "This is an unprincipled an unintended use of the reconciliation procedure. These are massive changes, all for the better. We can't support that."
There are many changes, only some being about "pork" however defined. They are changing the bill through reconciliation, though that's not what it's for.
"Let's pass this law and declare it to be a constitutional amendment."
"Hey, you can't do that, it's not the correct procedure."
"Who cares? The law will make things better. Do you want to block it just in the name of process, and then pretend you're doing it on some sort of principle?"
The point is this is a horrible bill that can't be fixed. Its basic approach is wrong. Trying to patch it up in any way makes things worse if it makes the bill even slightly more acceptable to the public. We have to tear it out, root and branch.
Thank you, last anon, for finally answering my original question. Now I get it.
The reconciliation procedure is a key building block of our system of government as evidenced to the many constitutional provisions enshrining it and we should fight tooth and nail to maintain its inviolability (especially when doing so supports our efforts to stop a bill we don't like)
Insert "filibuster" "seniority system" or any of the the quaint gentleman's club rules that Congress follows
Of course these protestations as to the sanctity of procedure and tradition would carry more weight if they weren't connected to the crazy criminal element evident teabagger rallies in the TV pictures yesterday.
Karl rove seemed legitimately off his his rocker on the Sunday shows - he may have had a point about double counting on savings estimates but his frothiness made it seem dubious. Boehner looked more the angry villager than a statesman. Acting this way and then claiming to speak for "the people" is going to backfire.
I'd argue against the bizarre nonsese of the last anonymous, but as soon as he used the word "teabagger" he removed himself from the company of those who can be taken seriously.
I think he had a point about Karl Rove's frothiness. He was much more himself with Terry Gross on NPR earlier in the week. I had something of a problem with protesters yelling "nigger" and "faggot" at members of congress as they arrived for work, but my guess is that's just selective reporting. What I really have a problem with are the republican congress members who (1) went up into the gallery to egg on unlawful protests and (2) anonymously yelled "baby killer" at Bart Stupak. That's a level of frothiness I cannot abide.
"I had something of a problem with protesters yelling "nigger" and "faggot" at members of congress as they arrived for work, but my guess is that's just selective reporting."
If a few stray people (regardless of whether they were actual Tea Party people or not) did this, certainly they're condemned by the vast majority of Tea Party protestors, who want nothing to do with them. Still, I haven't seen any evidence that this is anything but a hoax. There was plenty of video available and no one's been able to come up with anything.
I forgot to add there's also reason to believe the "baby killer" event did not happen.
As far as egging on unlawful protest, poor dears, those Democrats actually having to deal with hearing that some people disagree with them.
Rep Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) has confessed to being the person who yelled out "baby killer." He conveniently explained that he was referring to the bill as a baby killer, not his colleague Rep Stupak. Sure thing.
Also, if you assume that it is more likely a long-serving congressman would create a "hoax" that protesters called him a nigger on the Capitol steps than someone actually having done so, we probably don't have much else to talk about, anon. You should have stuck to the "we ostracize those people" line of argument. It's stronger without the latter argument that seems to facially contradict it.
Are you kidding me? Generally when you hear about someone shouting "nigger" or someone getting a KKK or Swastika written on their door, it's a hoax. This is the norm. It happens over and over in hundreds of high profile cases. These things practically generate themselves during controversies. Whenever some white guy gets beaten in some incident, it doesn't take too long before someon claims he used racial epithets first.
There are several videos of the Congressman walking by the Tea Partiers and no one's been able to make out any namecalling along the lines of his claims yet.
So it seems likely he made it up, he exaggerated, or he hated the tea partiers so blindly he heard some words and just assumed it was "nigger." There are other possibilties, I suppose. Maybe someone trying to make the Tea Partiers look bad shouted the epithet. Or the Congressman heard rumors about what happens and he repeated them. Or someone thought he heard something and said "did they say nigger" and the Congressman heard that.
Then, at the bottom of the list, is the idea that a congressman walks by and an actual Tea Party protestor has nothing better to do than shout an ugly racial slur that has nothing to do with what he's protesting about and will make his side look incredibly bad, especially after they've dishonestly been called racist by their opponents.
Think about what you're claiming. Even if you have the ugly view that the protestors are racists, people don't go around in public shouting "nigger" in front of a black congressman--even people who use the word the rest of their day. That's why whenever I hear about such cases, I figure odds are it's a hoax. I'm still waiting any audio evidence of this highly public event to show otherwise.
I'd like to get this back to the original point of discussion, which was QG's question: Why fight reconciliation?
QG (or Veronica, if you will), I assume you're on board with this bill, or at least some major portions of it, but for the moment, I'd like to ask you how you would handle reconciliation, if you were on the other side of it.
Let me suggest someone put up a new post for Tuesday on this, so we can start fresh.
Post a Comment
<< Home