This week, there was a major development that could give one
political party carte blanche to remake the country’s health care
system. No, it was not Arlen Specter’s decision to bolt the
Republican Party and caucus with Senate Democrats. For the time
being, at least, Specter remains an unreliable
supporter of President Obama’s domestic agenda.
Instead a procedural vote occurring with much less fanfare
increased the likelihood of a federal government takeover of
health care. Both houses of Congress passed a $3.5 trillion
budget resolution. Included in the conference report was
reconciliation language that would allow health care legislation
to be rammed through the expedited budgetary process with no
amendments, no filibusters, and minimal debate.
The fun won’t necessarily stop with health care reform. In
addition to restructuring the 17 percent of the American economy
represented by health care, reconciliation authority could also
be used to raise taxes and revamp the energy sector via cap and
trade. No filibusters allowed, just 20 hours of debate before the
final up-and-down vote. As few as 50 Democratic senators plus
Vice President Joe Biden would be necessary to prevail.
Reconciliation was designed as part of the Budget Act of 1974 to
help the federal government save money and reduce deficits.
Republicans, no strangers to legislative shenanigans themselves,
have used the fast-track process to cut taxes, reform welfare,
and drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But health care
reform has legal implications beyond the budget and will cost
vast sums of money.
That’s why some leading Democrats didn’t think it was a good idea
to use the reconciliation process for health care reform. One of
them was Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.),
who hails from a state carried by George W. Bush and John McCain.
For months, Conrad argued that the normal Senate rules should be
followed.
“I’ve been as clear as I can be publicly and privately that I
don’t think reconciliation is the right way to write fundamental
reform legislation,” the Wall Street Journal quoted
Conrad as saying. “It wasn’t designed for that purpose.” Conrad
was similarly emphatic when interviewed on ABC’s This
Week.
“Well, look, I have said for weeks, I don’t think it would be
wise to use the reconciliation process to write major
legislation, reform legislation,” he said. “That’s not what
reconciliation was designed for. It was designed purely for
deficit reduction.”
As a member of the conference committee that approved the final
budget outline, Conrad was in a position to do more than opine on
the wisdom of using reconciliation to force through major
legislation. He was in a position to stop it. Yet he meekly
acquiesced to Democratic leaders, who may crow that they are
nearing a filibuster-proof Senate majority but don’t seem to want
to take any chances.
It didn’t have to end up this way. In 1993, a new Democratic
president wanted to use reconciliation to pass his wife’s
ambitious health care reform plan. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.),
the powerful champion of the Senate Appropriations Committee and
defender of Senate traditions, went to the White House and told
Bill Clinton: Not gonna happen.
Byrd pointed out to the president that reconciliation was
designed to save money, not spend it, to hammer out the federal
budget, not federalize one-seventh of the American economy.
Clinton backed down. Writes Jennie Kronenfeld in The Changing
Federal Role in U.S. Health Care Policy, “The failure to
convince Byrd to add the health care plan to the reconciliation
bill may have doomed the reform.”
When it comes to Obama’s health care and cap-and-trade plans, the
old man still hasn’t changed his mind. In April, Byrd wrote that
such a use of reconciliation “would violate the intent and spirit
of the budget process and do serious injury to the Constitutional
role of the Senate.” He continued: “Reconciliation was intended
to adjust revenue and spending levels in order to reduce
deficits. It was not designed to cut taxes. It was not designed
to create a new climate and energy regime, and certainly not to
restructure the entire health care system.”
For this reason, Byrd voted against the budget resolution. While
he is no longer in a position to do much to halt the process, a
rule bearing his name does offer some potential for containing
the damage. Senators will be allowed to challenge provisions of
the legislation as extraneous to the budget process. If the
procedural objection is upheld, the item will be stripped from
the bill unless a filibuster-like supermajority of 60 senators
waives the Byrd Rule.
Robert Byrd won’t be remembered as a champion of liberty and
limited government. But his stalwart defense of Senate traditions
and public debate has often put a brake on both parties’
ambitions. Would that Kent Conrad and today’s senior Democrats
show similar resolve.
