Shocker: Roy Blunt Making Stuff Up About Reconciliation

For a man who has been in Washington as long as Roy Blunt, you'd think he'd know a thing or two about the way Congress has conducted itself in recent years.  Saturday, Blunt told a Lincoln Days crowd, “Tax policy is the only thing that I know of that we have used reconciliation for."

Democratic leaders in the Senate are currently contemplating the use of the "reconciliation" process to pass a handful of fixes to the health care reform bill already passed with a 60-vote supermajority.  The idea is that the House can pass the Senate bill, and then changes to the full bill can pass the Senate with 51-vote majorities.  (It's a little crazy that all this posturing is about allowing a majority to pass fixes that Republicans want -- like the exemption for Nebraska's state share of Medicaid expansion -- but that's a topic for another day.)

Blunt's statement about the use of a reconciliation process isn't even close to true. As noted in the Post-Dispatch about Blunt's comments, both parties have passed major changes with simple majorities in recent years. 

Last week, NPR put together a great story about Republicans' very recent opposition to majority rule.  From that story:

A History Of Reconciliation

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

The Capital Gains and Games blog also had a helpful primer about the process this weekend, which may be instructive for Blunt as well:

It's clear from all the comments on CG&G and elsewhere that Republican and Democratic commenters are refusing to acknowledge the basic facts about reconciliation.  So here are several factual statements. 

Get over it.  Stop denying it.  Move on.

1. Reconciliation is not a rule or an attempt to get around the rules; it's a law -- Public Law 93-344 (The Congressional Budget Act of 1974)  to be exact.
    
2. Reconciliation has been used by both Democrats and Republicans when they were in the majority.
    
3. When they have been in the majority, Democrats and Republicans have both argued that using reconciliation was proper.  Whey they have been in the minority both parties have maintained that it was improper for the other even to think about it.
    
4. The fact that one party has used reconciliation more than another is interesting but not instructive in any way.  The bottom line, again, is that they've both used it repeatedly.
    
5. Reconciliation has been used for both major and not-so-major changes.  It's also been used to increase and decrease the deficit.
    
6. The parliamentarian plays a major role in deciding what does and doesn't qualify under the Byrd Rule and, yes, the parliamentarian is appointed by the majority.

Blunt hasn't shown a real commitment to honest debate on health care issues in the last year, but I hope he can get up to speed on the rules and history of the Senate he'd like to join.

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