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NYTimes still providing cover: "arcane" "obscure" reconciliation rules
Carl Hulse at the New York Times just posted a report on the Democratic leadership's plan to make some use of the budget reconciliation rules in the process of passing health care reform bills.
Hulse's description of reconciliation includes the following phrases:
Fromn Hulse's description, you'd never know that reconciliation was used to pass " tax cuts, oil drilling, trade authority, and much else" during the Bush years (quoting Ezra Klein at http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_fifty_vote_senate).
Rather, the term "obscure procedure known as reconciliation" has become a bit of Washington-village cliche, preset and ready for journalists to import into every article that mentions the term. The very fact that there's a cliched form built on the term suggests that it's neither obscure or arcane, any more than the filibuster or the unanimous consent agreement is. Rather, reconciliation is a piece of Congressional rules that has been used regularly at least since the 1980s.
I don't know whether putting some or all of health care reform into budget bills and passing them under reconciliation rules is a legal or political good idea: I just know that there's nothing obscure or arcane about the possibility, and labeling it so is just unthinking cover for particular views.
As for Hulse's remark that employmen of reconciliation would " likely to touch off a nasty partisan fight with Republicans": Well, what do you call the current situation, where Republican legislators continually call the President a socialist, hold up lots of nominations on flimsy grounds, and filibuster 'most everything that comes up in the Senate? Would Hulse describe the current legislative atmosphere as "healthy bipartisan debate," perhaps? As "cooperation in moving the nation's agenda"? Has Hulse, a New York Times reporter, been paying any attention at all to the political discourse and actions of the minority party over the last month?
Hulse's description of reconciliation includes the following phrases:
"the use of an obscure procedure known as a reconciliation," and "the arcane maneuver"
Fromn Hulse's description, you'd never know that reconciliation was used to pass " tax cuts, oil drilling, trade authority, and much else" during the Bush years (quoting Ezra Klein at http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_fifty_vote_senate).
Rather, the term "obscure procedure known as reconciliation" has become a bit of Washington-village cliche, preset and ready for journalists to import into every article that mentions the term. The very fact that there's a cliched form built on the term suggests that it's neither obscure or arcane, any more than the filibuster or the unanimous consent agreement is. Rather, reconciliation is a piece of Congressional rules that has been used regularly at least since the 1980s.
I don't know whether putting some or all of health care reform into budget bills and passing them under reconciliation rules is a legal or political good idea: I just know that there's nothing obscure or arcane about the possibility, and labeling it so is just unthinking cover for particular views.
As for Hulse's remark that employmen of reconciliation would " likely to touch off a nasty partisan fight with Republicans": Well, what do you call the current situation, where Republican legislators continually call the President a socialist, hold up lots of nominations on flimsy grounds, and filibuster 'most everything that comes up in the Senate? Would Hulse describe the current legislative atmosphere as "healthy bipartisan debate," perhaps? As "cooperation in moving the nation's agenda"? Has Hulse, a New York Times reporter, been paying any attention at all to the political discourse and actions of the minority party over the last month?
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UPDATE: rewrite gets it right!
The current Carl Hulse article (as of 10:44 PM EDT) is considerably changed, and I would say considerably better. The article no longer characterizes reconciliation as 'arcane' or 'obscure', but simply describes it as a tactic that can be used to circumvent filibusters. This is accurate and doesn't load the issue, as the previous characterization did. Moreover, the article now mentions that reconciliation has been used to pass major policies in the past by the Repbulicans, and gives Senator McConnell's statement that using reconciliation would heighten partisan tension as a Senatorial statement, not as a description of fact.
Again, I have no idea whether passing health care reform under reconciliation rules is the best tactic, or whether it's necessary, or even a good idea, politically. But I'm very pleased that a New York Times article now reports on this issue, rather than recycling cliches. That's a real improvement, and Hulse and the NYT editors deserve credit for the improvements.
April 24, 2009 10:49 PM | Reply | Permalink