April 29, 2009Statement (by Senator Byrd) on FY 2010 Budget Resolution“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.”
“Whatever abuses of the budget reconciliation process which have occurred in the past, or however many times the process has been twisted to achieve partisan ends does not justify the egregious violation done to the Senate’s Constitutional purpose. The Senate has a unique institutional role.”
“It is the one place in all of government where the rights of the numerical minority are protected. As long as the Senate preserves the right to debate and the right to amend we hold true to our role as the Framers envisioned. We were to be the cooling off place where proposals could be examined carefully and debated extensively, so that flaws might be discovered and changes might be made. Remember, Democrats will not always control this chamber, the House of Representatives or the White House. The worm will turn. Some day the other party will again be in the majority, and we will want minority rights to be shielded from the bear trap of the reconciliation process.”
“Under reconciliation’s gag rule there are twenty hours of debate or less if time is yielded back, and little or no opportunity to amend. Those restrictions mean that whatever is nailed into reconciliation by the majority will likely emerge as the final product. With critical matters such as a massive revamping of our health care system which will impact the lives of every citizen of our great land, the Senate has a duty to debate and amend and explain in the full light of day, however long that may take, what it is we propose, and why we propose it. The citizens who sent us here deserve that explanation and they should demand it. We must not run roughshod over minority views. A minority can be right. An amendment can vastly improve legislation. Debate can expose serious flaws. Ramrodding and railroading have no place when it comes to such matters as our people’s healthcare. The President came to the White House promising a bipartisan government because he knew how sick and tired the American public is of scorched earth politics. I daresay President Obama should not be in favor of the destruction of the institutional purpose of this Senate in which he served any more than he would bless a rigged psuedo-debate on healthcare, completely absent minority input.”
“While I support the admirable budget priorities outlined in this resolution, I cannot and will not condone legislation that puts political expediency ahead of the time-honored purpose of this institution.”
http://byrd.senate.gov/speeches/view_article.cfm?ID=366 Senator Byrd seems to be taking as stand based on principle. Of the past abuses he mentioned, Bush's 2001 & 2003 tax cuts for the wealthy come first to my mind and apparently to his also. He is saying that these past abuses do not justify his support for what he sees as a similar abuse.
It is particularly troubling when he says, "Some day the other party will again be in the majority, and we will want minority rights to be shielded from the bear trap of the reconciliation process.” But we have been shown that the other party will not respect the reconciliation process as a shield for what he sees as minority rights of Senators.
But reconciliation rules have been changed by precedent:
Until 1996, reconciliation was limited to deficit reduction, but in 1996 the Senate adopted a precedent to apply reconciliation to any legislation affecting the budget, even legislation that would worsen the deficit. Under the administration of President George W. Bush Congress used reconciliation to enact three major tax cuts. Efforts to use reconciliation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling failed.
http://tiny.cc/uuzvHHit the link above for a historical list of reconciliation bills.
But the Senator is a crafty old Byrd. He just might surprise us by ultimately coming out with the same conclusion that I have offered. And then again he might not.
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