Monday, February 14, 2011

Karl Rove flip-flops on reconciliation: Now he's all for using it to undo health-care reform #p2


A year ago, Karl Rove claimed it was outrageous for Democrats to use reconciliation for health-care reform

Click here to view this media


If the name of my site, CrooksandLiars, refers to anyone in the world, Karl Rove would be among the top 10. He just wrote an op-ed in the WSJ saying that Republicans can use "reconciliation" to repeal our new health care law:

Former Bush strategist Karl Rove is urging congressional Republicans to use Democrats' own tactics against them to force the repeal of President Barack Obama's landmark health care law.

Rove said Thursday that he wants to see the Senate GOP use the budget reconciliation process to repeal the law with a simple majority, not the 60-plus votes they would need to pass a separate repeal bill. "Democrats cannot complain if the GOP uses reconciliation after Democrats used it to pass ObamaCare through the Senate," Rove wrote on The Wall Street Journal's op-ed page. If Republicans are able to pick up at least four seats in the 2012 election — which would give them a simple majority of 51 and allow them to take the chairmanships of all Senate committees — Rove said he thinks the party will be able to roll back health care reform.

Under reconciliation, "the Senate Budget Committee could instruct the Senate Finance Committee to reduce mandatory spending on insurance subsidies and Medicaid expansion. These two items make up more than 90 [percent] of spending in ObamaCare," he wrote.

"All the changes from all the committees" could then be "bundled into one measure and voted upon" as a budget bill, meaning it would only need 51 votes to pass. Because reconciliation is protected by the rules of the budget process, it doesn't take 60 votes to overcome a filibuster threat, and it requires a simple majority to pass.


rest at http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/karl-rove-flip-flops-reconciliation-hes

No comments:

Post a Comment