Democrats Threaten Use of "Nuclear Option" to Pass Obama's Health Care

The President will meet with Democrat and Republicans members of Congress tomorrow, ostensibly in an attempt to come to agreement on Obama’s health care bill.

The summit will likely lay the groundwork for pushing the final bill through Congress using a privileged budget process called “reconciliation” that will allow Democrats to more easily overcome Republican efforts to block the bill in the Senate.

Obama's plan would make it easier to bypass Republicans if necessary and ram through legislation by a process requiring a simple majority in the 100-member Senate rather than the 60 votes needed to clear procedural hurdles.

If you follow Congressional politics, you may have heard the beginnings of a debate among the parties about the potential use of the "reconciliation process", also referred to as the "nuclear option", which only requires 51 votes as a way for Democrats to avoid a Republican filibuster of a health care bill in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters yesterday that Republicans "should stop crying" about the possible use of the parliamentary procedure known as budget reconciliation to pass a health care reform bill.

“They should stop crying about reconciliation as if it's never been done before.”

Actually Reid is right, the reconciliation sentae procedural process has been used several times in the past; however, this process has only been used to deal with budgetary actions and amendments. It has never been used by any party as a means of “steamrolling” a huge, deficit ridden, entitlement program into law. The reconciliation process was created in 1974 to facilitate adjustments of existing spending programs, not to implement new ones.

Of course, back in 2005 when (then) President Bush and his Republican Congress threatened, but did not use, the use “reconciliation” as a means of forcing the Congress to act on his Supreme Court nominations, the Democrats all had a completely different view of this process, they saw the use of “reconciliation” as nothing more than “…the end of democracy!”

I would think that perhaps Harry Reid should try and remember what he and his colleagues, including (then) Senator Obama, whined about to stop Presidient Bush from using the "reconciliation" or "nuclear option" back in 2005 before they start complaining about the exact type of response they are now receiving from the Republicans.