Reconciliation Is Not An "Abuse of Power"

Crossposted from the Harvard Political Review blog:

I hope everyone understands that when the Wall Street Journal calls Obama's "up or down" vote on health care reform an "abuse of power," they're lying through their teeth. To be clear: the bill on the floor has already passed a supermajority in the senate and a majority in the house and more -- it's gone through Max Baucus' bipartisan "Gang of Six," committees in both chambers, the Bipartisan Summit Spectacle, and a reconciled final package. Nothing has been rammed through in haste. Indeed, what we have here is a product of a decades-long national conversation about the future of health care reform, and an answer that looks a lot like the centrist bill that was passed by a certain republican governor in Massachusetts.

Furthermore, the reconciliation process is not some recondite partisan maneuver. It's been around since the 1970s. (See this NYTimes chart on the history of reconciliation.) It was used to pass Clinton's welfare reforms and Bush's tax cuts (which, by the way, cost 1.8 billion dollars/ten years, twice the size of the Health Care reform bill). And never before was this "controversial." Jamison Foseur from Media Matters did some leg work and found that when reconciliation was used for the Bush tax cuts "only one New York Times article so much as mentioned the use of reconciliation" and "The Washington Post didn't run a single article, column, editorial, or letter to the editor that used the words 'reconciliation' and senate.' Not one. USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press were similarly silent."

So when we get The Wall Street Journal calling reconciliation an "unprecedented act of partisan arrogance that would further mark Democrats as the party of liberal extremism" we know that this is nothing but partisan hackery of the stupidest and most mendacious kind.

But honestly, I'm fine with that. Most Americans don't care very much about senate procedures. Most Americans care about paying for their health care, about not seeing their wages stagnate and decline and about dealing with the federal deficit. If this "abuse of power" lie is the Republican's best case against health care reform at this stage, then it's pretty clear that it's a losing case. And that's a good thing for the Dems and a good thing for America.

At the eve of this bill's passing, I'll just say: shame on everyone in both parties who's made this process so replete with fear mongering, corruption and lies. And good for Obama for signaling that he's ready to get it done.

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