The Truth as It Is - Not as It's Being Told - Reconciliation

Hi everyone -

Well today, I'm going to try to de-bunk some of these "myths" out there floating around. I'm going to talk a little bit about the Reconciliation process. If anyone wants to fact check, go ahead. I got all my information off the official House and Senate Sites - attached to the actual Bills that passed as well as the CBO site.

So let's take a look at what Reconciliation is really about, what it was originally supposedly intended to do and a couple of little tiny loopholes that sure been taken advantage of over the last 20 years.

Reconciliation was originally initiated in 1974 to allow consideration of contentious budget bills without the threat of filibusters. It's intent was to limit debate and favor the majority party. It changes existing law to bring spending, revenues or debt limit into conformity with budget resolution.

The one loophole was that it only specifies that the measures would include budgetary "changes". It did not specify whether or not these changes would be an increase or decrease in the deficit. This loophole has never been changed and I find that quite interesting as the Byrd Amendment has been amended on multiple occasions. So although I'm sure Mr. Byrd's intent was to only include items that reduce the debt (wink, wink), that's not the way it was written and it's not the way it's been used.

The second loophole is that if the Reconciliation Bill causes a budget deficit, it has to expire or get renewed in 10 years. Again, if it's intent was only to reduce the deficit, why is this little part written in as well. This is the loophole that President Bush used for the tax cuts for the rich. That's why this is such a talking point now as it's been 10 years and President Obama is not willing to renew the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of the population.

And don't forget, there's a Parliamentarian whose supposed to determine what can and can not be decided by Reconciliation. This year, that would be Alan Frumin. But surprise, the Presiding Officer doesn't have to follow his recommendation. And guess who that is - Vice President Joe Biden.

So here are some statistics on reconciliation.

It was enacted in 1974.
It was first used in 1981.
17 of 23 times it was used during a Republican Presidency.
9 times, the Republicans had control of both the House and the Senate.
6 times, the Democrats had control of both the House and the Senate.
1 time, the Democrats had control of the Senate and the Republicans had control of the House.
7 times, the Republicans had control of the Senate and the Democrats had control of the House.

1 time, it was used completely for a non-budgetary issue. The College Cost and Access Act of 2007 passed
with a Republican President and a Democratic Congress.

Health Care issues were addressed in a few of these Bills. The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 was mostly Health Care Reform. Medicare and Medicaid - yes, "entitlement" programs were
addressed in many of these Bills. Here are a few of them:

1982 Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act
1985 COBRA
1987 OBRA
1989 OBRA
1990 OBRA
1993 OBRA
1995 Balanced Budge Act - This was Vetoed by President Clinton.
1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act/Welfare Reform
1997 Balanced Budget Act which Includes the Medicare Advantage Programs/Insurance Company
Give-Aways
1999 Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act - This was Vetoed by President Clinton as it increased the deficit.
2000 Marriage Tax Relief Reconciliation Act - Again, Vetoed by President Clinton as it increased the deficit.
2005 Deficit Reduction Act

Now, the next talking point I want to talk about is the "huge majority passage" and "bi-partisan" passage of these Reconciliation Bills. The Republicans contend that all of their Reconciliation Bills passed with "huge majorities" and "bi-partisan" votes. OK, now, that's a red flag for me. Let's just go there.

I've checked the votes on these Bills on the Congressional Sites.

7 of these 23 Bills passed with less than 60 votes. OK I know that 7 out of 23 is not "all" or 100%. I also know my math - I'm thinking that would be 70% of these Bills were passed with a majority vote. Let's look at some of the numbers. These are the ones I could find easily.


1996 - H.R. 3734 which is the Welfare and Medicaid Act. This was during President Clinton's Presidency
with a Republican Congress. This Bill passed with a 78-21 vote.
53 Yeas were Republicans, 25 Yeas were Democrats. All 21 Nays were Democrats.

1997 - H.R. 2015 which is the S-CHIP Program - which by the way, is a complete "entitlement" program.
This Bill has a significant Health Care platform.
Again, still a Democratic President with a Republican Congress. This Bill passed 85-15.
43 Yeas were Republicans, 42 were Democrats. 12 Nays were Republicans, 3 were Democrats.

2001 - H.R. 1836 which was President Bush's first Tax Cut for the Wealthy. So it was a Republican President
with a Republican House and a 50-50 Split Senate. This Bill passed 58 - 33.
46 Yeas were Republicans, 12 were Democrats. 2 Nays were Republicans, 31 were Democrats.

FYI - The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that this Bill Decreased the Surplus
by 1.35 Trillion Dollars.

2003 - H.R. 2 which was President Bush's second Tax Cut for the Wealthy. So it was a Republican President
with a Republican Congress again. This Bill passed 50 - 50 with Vice President Cheney breaking the tie.
48 Yeas were Republicans, 2 were Democrats. 3 Nays were Republicans, 47 were Democrats.

FYI - The CBO predicted that this Bill Increased the Deficit by 350 Billion Dollars.

2006 - H.R. 4297 which was President Bush's third Tax Cut for the Wealthy. Again, a Republican President
with a Republican Congress. This Bill passed 54 - 44.
51 Yeas were Republicans, 3 were Democrats. 3 Nays were Republicans, 41 were Democrats.

FYI - The CBO predicted that this Bill Increased the Deficit by 70 Billion Dollars.

I also found evidence that some other Bills passed with Reconciliation with close votes but I couldn't find the Bill numbers so I couldn't verify the final votes.

I found articles that said 7 Bills passed with less than 60 votes. Again, far from the 100% that the Republicans have claimed to have had a huge majority win on.

2 of the others listed were the 1995 Balanced Budget Act with a win of 52 -47 (later vetoed) and the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act with a 50 - 50 tie with Vice President Cheney breaking the tie again - and only after they fired the Parliamentarian.

Now to me, there are some really important facts that we need to look at. These facts are not debatable - they're not open to interpretation. They are just the facts. I just don't see how any or either side or any person can put a spin on them. The facts are the facts. They are part of public record.

My first question would be:

Why would the Republicans have to have a Bill pass through Reconciliation if they had a majority vote?
Now the only reason to use Reconciliation is because of a filibuster or not having the majority vote. This means that the minority (mostly the Democrats) would have been filibustering these Bills. Therefore, I predict that they did not have a majority vote to begin with. Make sense?

Now then what comes next is a lot of back room dealing or horse trading, pork, pork, pork. So at some point, the majority (mainly the Republicans) must have been really wheeling and dealing to get these Bills through. So in the end, they brought along a few other "friends" to vote on the final Bill - either with back room deals or the amendments that were attached to these Bills. Then when the final Bills came to the floor, they ended up with a majority vote.

The other possibility could be that if the members opposed to the Bill then realized the Bill would pass with a 50% vote, some of them decided to vote for the Bill as they felt it would look good to their constituents. This in itself is reason enough that there shouldn't be anonymous votes allowed on the floor.

So there it is - the first of the de-bunking myths entries in my blog.

Off for some red carpet viewing - something almost as controversial. lol. Take Care.