Surely you would grant that there is a valid debate on what is and should be covered by “primarliy”. No?
Regarding legislation, what article and clause of the Constitution would I find that in if I “looked it up”? :dubious:
As judged by whom, in comparison to any other legislation ever passed by an ordinary majority, in the democratic tradition (which you will find, if you “look it up”)?
IOW, you want to change the rules depending on which party has been voted into the majority. Just admit that and we can move on.
I do understand that. But the question is what degree of change is warranted under reconciliation. I’d say that the changes should align with the law(s) that was passed, and not attempt to include something that the law, as written, did NOT include. Again, the omission of the Stupak amendment or similar language.
Would you agree that reconciliation was not meant to and should not be used to include such language—language that was deliberately omitted from the bill before it passed the Senate?
I would give you a break here if you can point to you making the same claim when Bush got tax cuts passed via reconciliation on a 50/50 vote with Cheney casting the tiebreaking vote.
If not then you are just deciding this time it needs to be done with a supermajority because this time you happen to not like the bill.
Oh, FWIW the Bush tax cut cost more than UHC is expected to. It was a HUGE change.
So the constitution would have a higher threshold for things like declaring war? Check my pocket Constitution, nope, just a majority. Passing civil rights bill? Nope just a majority.
What you are really saying is that you, personally, would like to have a super majority for this bill.
I’ll point you to my previous posts—AND YOUR OWN. :rolleyes:
Wow. You don’t think this is a HUGE change to the country, by any measure? We’ll just have to agree to disagree, as we have no common ground. Onward.
IOW, :rolleyes:.
Onward.
Next!
“REGARDING LEGISLATION”. Scroll up and “look it up”.
Sure it is. Now how is that relevant to the discussion of the vote total required for legislation under the Constitution?
Right. My “ground” is in history and the Constitution and fact, so of course we don’t have any ground in common.
IOW you got caught out in a silly falsehood, and are only making it worse by refusing to acknowledge it. Up to you, though.
As you no doubt read in my OP, I agree with what Obama had said. That a change so sweeping should not be done with a simple 51-vote majority. It passed the Senate with 60. Great. Now it falls to the House. If they want to pass the bill AS IS with a simple majority, fine. That’s the law. I’m not happy about it, and agree with the Obama—or should I say, the old Obama—that a change so sweeping should not be undertaken by a simple majority. But that is the law. But in light of the sentiment behind The Old Obama’s opinion, reconciliation should not be used to change the substance of the bill in a way that I’ve already described.
magellan01 where did you ever find the time for all those dancing lessons what with all the time at the gym?
Look at him dance, everyone!
You know, you do this kind of shit all the time, and this is why I’m not going to respond to you anymore. You play games trying to take points out of context. You use language from a post thirty posts ago and bring it back into the conversation without the benefit of the context. Or, even more often, ignore stuff that has already been explained. Most people choose to retain a point made earlier and use that as part of the discussion’s foundation. But just as the discussion seems to be moving forward, you revert back to a point that was settled much earlier. It’s as if your memory can only hold three post’s worth of information. All the foundation is forgotten by the time we move on to the second floor. Now, you may enjoy that type of debate for some strange reason, but I don’t. So, I’ll leave you to those who do.
The answers to all your comments already reside in this thread. Read them if you’d like. Or not. Either way, I’ll stick with those who disagree with me but are less disagreeable.
So you’re not going to tell us what point you intended to make by demonstrating your ignorance of the Constitution?
Policy matters with no significant budgetary impact can’t be included in reconciliation, so I have no clue what the heck you’re talking about.
If the Democrats put some abortion policy language in the bill, it would be stripped out by a point of order. If you want to have a halfway intelligent conversation about what is allowed under reconciliation, then you at least should have a basic grasp of the Byrd Rule.
Byrd says the Byrd Rule can be used for this, regardless of the GOP talking point to the contrary.
That was well before I became a member. But I will say that the dollar amount is only one way to measure something. I’m not intimately familiar with how the Bush tax cuts came about, but I will say that I think tax cuts are probably going to be something that is more naturally subject to reconciliation than many aspects of the health care bill. For instance, neither an abortion provision nor mandating Americans buy a product fit under reconciliation. IMO. so, if either of these things are to m=be added or omitted via reconciliation, I think that is an abuse of the system.
But whether the anti-abortion language can find it’s way back into the bill, in order to get more House support, is one thing that is being discussed right now. If you think that would be wrong and abusive, we agree. It appears that if language similar to the Stupak amendment’s can NOT make it into the final bill, then the bill is dead.
Do you see other scenario? Or am I not understanding you?
Wrong again. Reconciliation is to bring income and expenses closer into line - hence the word “reconcile”. Tax cuts do exactly the opposite, no matter the fantasies of the supply-siders and the corporatists who manipulate them.
But those fantasies were what was used as a pretext by your party.
This isn’t rocket science. If anyone wants to try to pass any changes to policy that don’t effect the budget through reconciliation, then those provisions are extremely vulnerable to being stripped out. This has nothing to do with my opinion, or your opinion, or anyone else’s opinion, it’s the plain reading of the rules.
There is NOTHING wrong whatsoever with trying to include policy measures in a reconciliation bill. Whoever does so is not breaking any rule. However, if a senator makes a point of order that something violates the Byrd Rule, it gets stripped out, unless there’s 60 votes to keep it in.
Therefore, the rule allows for non-controversial policy measures to be contained in reconciliation bills. What is non-controversial? Whatever the Senate votes to decide it is. The Senate can’t decide until it votes. And, as Senator Byrd stated in his letter, the substance of the reconciliation measure is likely to be more substantive changes to the health care plan that include budgetary impacts, which is right in the wheelhouse of reconciliation.
The problem with including tax cuts in reconciliation is that it really does turn reconciliation on its head. Dressing up tax cuts as reducing the deficit is patently absurd, and THAT’S an abuse of the system.