Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today he has some instructions for Republicans balking at the probable reconciliation route Democrats will take to pass health care.
“Look at history,” Reid (D-NV ) told reporters who asked about GOP complaints.
He said Republicans used reconciliation for Contract with America legislation and major items such as the Bush tax cuts.
“They’re the ones who used it more than anyone else,” he said.
Reid said “nothing’s off the table” for ways to finally finish health care.
I asked Reid about the growing number of Democrats signing a letter urging the public option be passed via reconciliation, but he ignored the question.
A few minutes before, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters that Reid and President Obama are trying to “jam” health care through Congress.
“The only thing bipartisan about this bill is the opposition to it,” McConnell said.
Reid also said Obama truly wants to reach out to the GOP, adding: “He is not a partisan president.”
He said after a meeting today with the 8 Senate Democrats who will join him at the summit Thursday, “we’re ready to respond to anything the Republicans bring up.”
Late Update: Here are some fuller quotes from Reid scolding the GOP.
“I’ve been told that my Republican friends are lamenting reconciliation, but I would recommend for them to go back and look at history,” Reid said.
“Since 1981, reconciliation has been used 21 times. The vast majority of those reconciliation efforts have been by Republicans,” he said. “[T]hey should stop crying about reconciliation as if it’s never been done before. It’s done almost every Congress, and they’re the ones that used it more than anyone else.”
He added, “The Contract for America, most of the stuff in the Contract for America was done with reconciliation. Tax cuts, done with reconciliation. Medicare, done with reconciliation. So they better go back and look at history a little bit.”
