Via lord_mike in quick hits, Senator Robert Byrd is open to using budget reconciliation to fix the Senate health reform bill. Byrd's staff writes into a local West Virginia newspaper:
I believed then, as now, that the Senate should debate the health reform bill under regular rules, which it did. The result of that debate was the passing of a comprehensive health care reform bill in the Senate by a 60-vote supermajority.
I continue to support the budget reconciliation process for deficit reduction. The entire Senate- or House- passed health care bill could not and would not pass muster under the current reconciliation rules, which were established under my watch.
Yet a bill structured to reduce deficits by, for example, finding savings in Medicare or lowering health care costs, may be consistent with the Budget Act, and appropriately considered under reconciliation.
This is the end of the reconciliation whip count. If Robert Byrd is OK with a reconciliation fix, then there is no longer any doubt the Senate has the votes for a reconciliation fix.
How meaningful is Byrd's support? In 2009, Byrd switched his vote on the federal budget from "yea" on April 2nd, to "nay" on April 29th, entirely because the April 29th version of the budget left open the possibility of using reconciliation for health care (the April 2nd budget did not). From Byrd's statement at the time:
"I like this budget. I support many of the policies that the President's budget embraces - including middle-class tax relief, and badly needed investments in our nation's infrastructure - but I cannot, and I will not, vote to authorize the use of the reconciliation process to expedite passage of health care reform legislation or any other legislative proposal that ought to be debated at length by this body."
"Using reconciliation to ram through complicated, far-reaching legislation is an abuse of the budget process. The writers of the Budget Act, and I am one, never intended for its reconciliation's expedited procedures to be used this way. These procedures were narrowly tailored for deficit reduction. They were never intended to be used to pass tax cuts, or to create new Federal regimes. Additionally, reconciliation measures must comply with Section 313 of the Budget Act, known as the Byrd Rule, which means that whatever health legislation is reported from the Finance Committee or legislation from any other Committee that is shoe-horned into reconciliation will sunset after five years. Additionally, numerous other non-budgetary provisions of any such legislation will have to be omitted under reconciliation. This is a very messy way to achieve a goal like health care reform, and one that will make crafting the legislation more difficult."
If Byrd is now open to a reconciliation fix after writing that last year, then the Senate will do a reconciliation fix.
It is also worth noting that Byrd actually becomes the 51st Senator to make a public statement indicating openness to the reconciliation process (the "yes" and maybe" votes in the link now combine to 51). So, this statement doubly ends any doubt about the Senate having the votes to pass a reconciliation fix.
Byrd's staff also had some fun writing into the local newspaper:
With all due respect, the Daily Mail's hyperbole about "imposing government control," acts of "disrespect to the American people" and "corruption" of Senate procedures resembles more the barkings from the nether regions of Glennbeckistan than the "sober and second thought" of one of West Virginia's oldest and most respected daily newspapers.
As Natasha said to me this morning, "let's never take a trip to the nether regions of Glennbeckistan." [Homer Simpson revulsion noise]
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