The Reaction: Reconciliation for Dummies

By J. Thomas Duffy

That be you, President Obama, and the entire Democratic caucus!

You guys have been acting like old ladies, standing on a chair, because a mouse came into the room, all because some bozo PartyofNoican won an election nobody thought he would (and, in fairness, he campaigned and took victory without mentioning he was a PartyofNoican), and suddenly the sky is falling.

This is what we wrote last week:

However, as to the bigger picture, unless something remarkably uncanny happened, and all kinds of state and federal laws were, suddenly, abrogated, and changed, today, newly-elected Teabagger Senator Scott Brown only won one Senatorial seat, not 18-20, and, unless something else has changed, Brown will come to a dead stop, after he runs-like-the-wind, to get to DC, and join the rest of the PartyofNoicans, in doing nothing

[snip]

What the Dems need to do is, along with growing a few pairs, start governing, start using their majority in Congress, to govern, much as the PartyofNoicans did (when they were known as "Republicans"), during the The Bush Grindhouse years, where they, without a majority, handed The Commander Guy everything he wanted.

Since you seem to be having trouble growing a pair, Paul N. Van de Water and James R. Horney have handed you some, laying it all out for you today:

Using Reconciliation Process to Enact Health Reform Would Be Fully Consistent With Past Practice

Conclusion

Because rising health care costs represent the single largest cause of the federal government’s long-term budget problems, fundamental health care reform must be part of any budget solution.[15] The foregoing examples indicate that using the budget reconciliation process to enact health reform in 2010 would be consistent with the ways in which Congress has used reconciliation in the past. Many major policy changes, including welfare reform, large tax cuts, and new health programs, have been included in past reconciliation bills. Moreover, if health reform is pursued through the reconciliation process this year, the resulting legislation — unlike the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 — will need to be designed so it does not add to the deficit. Any legislation also is likely to include provisions, such as an independent Medicare Commission and demonstration projects to identify ways to deliver health care more efficiently, that could lead to further reforms that slow the growth of health-care costs and contribute to longer-term deficit reduction.

Back in the old days (early '70s) on the "Point-Counter" of 60 Minutes, Nicholas von Hoffman called disgraced President Richard Nixon a "dead mouse on America's kitchen floor ... And it was time for Congress to come in and sweep it up ..."

This is your moment, this is what you are there for.

So, climb down off your chairs, grab a broom, sweep away those pesky, minority PartyofNoican mice, and get to work passing legitimate, benefiting-the-citizens-not-the-corporations health-care reform (and with a Public Option, or a Single Payer system, thank you very much).