Uh-oh, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) … it looks like Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) may just ignore your warning not to play “hide the reconciliation ball” during the upcoming congressional budget talks.
Reid told reporters earlier today that he would not rule out using “reconciliation” language to shield health care reform from a Republican filibuster later this year. Roll Call reports the Democratic leader’s response: “Let’s see what happens in the next three weeks, in the next month … We need to do health care, and we are going to do health care.”
For those of you who are just getting up to speed on the budget debate, here’s a quick recap:
The Senate’s budget does not include reconciliation, which was used by the GOP to push through the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, but the House’s budget does — and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is making no bones about her desire to fast-track health care this year.
Gregg and his fellow GOPers are raising a stink over Reid’s ability to pull a fast one on the Republicans by passing a Senate budget without reconciliation, then coming out with a budget conference report that looks like the House’s version.
Conference deals can’t be filibustered, which means that the GOP would then be out of options to stop the Democrats from negotiating amongst themselves on health care, if they so desired.
Playing “hide the reconciliation ball” with Senate Republicans would assuredly improve Reid’s stock with his party’s progressive base, which has long urged him to use a stronger hand in quashing GOP filibusters.
But there are also some compelling policy reasons not to filibuster-proof the health care bill: reconciliation would limit the measure to just 20 hours of debate and require the reform bill to sunset after five years, which would put a big, honking target on the new health care system’s back for Democrats to defend all over again in 2014.
