Reconciliation is the political tactic that has been in the news often since the beginning of the healthcare reform debate this year. The Democratic party currently has possession of the White House and a majority in both houses of Congress. There is a concern that the majority party can pass any legislation it wants and the minority party is powerless to stop them.
Reconciliation is an option that was created in the 1974 Congressional Budget Act to allow Congress a way out of intractable budget battles.
Wesleyan University government professor Elvin Lim said it was invented as a way to achieve a balanced budget–not to force through highly controversial legislation.
“It wasn’t passed to allow Congress to go ahead and do anything it wants, but as it turns out, that’s the way it’s been used, quite frankly, by both sides of the aisle,” Lim told CNSNews.com.
In fact, he said, President George W. Bush was the last to utilize the tactic–getting Congress to pass tax cuts three times in ‘01, ‘03 and ’05–because he wanted to bypass a Senate filibuster by Democrats.
Gary Bauer, a former politician, Presidential candidate and founder of a political group called American Values is another voice warning that liberals in Congress will employ reconciliation to force their healthcare agenda through Congress.
If liberal Democrats do force through the legislation over the significant objections of conservatives, the former Republican presidential candidate says the minority party should be prepared to shut down the Senate.
While Bauer suggests using parliamentary procedures to achieve a Senate shutdown no specifics were given. If the minority party can effectively shutdown the Senate in the event that the majority party invokes reconciliation on the healthcare issue it may be the only method to stop a government takeover of the way we manage our health decisions.
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 10:43 am and is filed under Public Affairs, Health, wordpress, Politics, obama, Freedom, Medicare, Congress, Legislation.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
