Paul Ryan: Dems Will "Reconcile" Health Care

Paul Ryan is trying to sound the alarm about what the Democrats are planning to do with our health care system and how they intend to do it.

He says that Republicans have been shut out of the meetings where a handful of Dems are hammering out a backroom deal that will "reconcile" health care.

From David Freddoso, The Corner:

Reconciliation, originally designed in the 1974 Budget Act as a means for helping the government save money and keep federal budgets closer to balance, allows for certain legislation to pass both houses of Congress on an expedited basis — and perhaps most importantly, to pass the Senate with a bare majority. Despite Republican threats of retribution in the Senate, the GOP is virtually powerless to prevent this from happening.

The reconciliation process begins with passage of a bicameral budget resolution that tells congressional committees to find savings or new revenues in their departments of jurisdiction. In the budget the House passed last month, for example, there exists such an instruction to find a miniscule $1 billion in savings. If that provision finds its way into the final budget that will be considered by both houses (probably next week), that is all it takes to pave the road to nationalized health care.

Then, later in the year, legislation to “reconcile” that $1 billion in savings with government policy can pass Congress without the threat of amendments, with comparatively little time for debate, and by a bare majority vote in the Senate.

In this case, the Obama administration plans to abuse a process that was designed to save money, not create expansive and expensive new policies. The idea is to implement two controversial policies at the once — carbon caps, which will raise government revenues, and nationalized health care, which costs money. Ideally, the one policy allows the other one to pass. If Congress can estimate for itself $1.5 trillion dollars in future revenues from selling mandatory carbon credits, it can then pass legislation under reconciliation to spend all but $1 billion of that money on an entirely new health-care system.

The final result: $1 billion “saved,” thus complying with the budget reconciliation instructions. A billion-dollar tail wags a $1.5 trillion dog.

Although the idea of reconciliation is to improve the budget's bottom line by finding greater savings and revenues than the amount of the new spending, reconciliation has effectively become a tool in recent times for spending more or taxing less. When they controlled Congress, Republicans used the tactic to reform welfare in 1996 and to cut taxes with a majority vote in 2001. They repeatedly tried to use reconciliation to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for exploration — this was actually closer to the original intent of the process, because the drilling revenues would have increased the budget's bottom line.

“We've seen mission creep with reconciliation under both Republicans and Democrats — there's no question about that,” said Ryan. “But this takes mission creep to a whole new level. Now they're talking about the possible nationalization of 17 percent of our economy in health care, 8 percent of the economy in energy, and the largest tax increase in history — all through a process which will have between 35 and 105 total hours of debate between the House and the Senate . . . That's an enormous power grab.”

Reconciliation is not meant to create massive new policies, like completely transforming our health care system. It's supposedly reserved only for the budget, but the Dems are using the rule as a loophole to pass their health care legislation.

This is an abuse of the process. The Dems don't care and the lib media aren't calling them on it. They're too busy preparing for their big 100 Days celebrations and Obama extravaganzas. The lib media are serving as Obama propagandists, not watchdogs.

Dems are desperately seeking to give Obama the gift of passing a health care plan in Obama's first 100 Days.

As Ryan notes, the Dems are ramming it through Congress without input from Republicans.

It's unthinkable that one party would do something as dramatic as enacting a nationalized health care system with a measly 35 to 105 total hours of debate in the House and Senate. It's absolutely unthinkable.

The Dems aren't allowing Republicans to take part. There's no debate. The Dems are acting like thugs. What we have here is a thugocracy, led by thug Obama.

When Ryan was interviewed by Mark Levin yesterday, he explained the strong-arm tactics being used to push through the government's takeover of health care.

There's no bipartisan compromise whatsoever. Ryan said he had an amendment on the floor to say that you can't use reconciliation to create a brand new entitlement program and to grow government, but "the crickets were chirping."

He explained that it's a process argument that's lost on the media and the public.

PAUL RYAN: The point is if we're going to have a takeover of 17 percent of our economy, of the entire health care system, if we're going to have a complete transformation of our health care system, you'd think we ought to spend a little more time thinking about it, talking about it, having amendments, having citizens and their elected representatives participate in this process, rather than the backroom deal that just got cut that I just heard about, by a handful of people in the White House and our Congressional leadership.

In effect, the White House and Congressional leadership are echoing the sentiments of Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel:

"[Republicans] can go f--- themselves!"

The lib media are spinning Obama's power grab as noble instead of abusive.

The New York Times refers to the abuse of power this way: "Obama Tactic Shields Health Care Bill From a Filibuster."

Obama is depicted as the protector, the crusader, shielding his utopian socialist health care plan from the evil Republicans.

In reality, Obama is overseeing the destruction of the best health care system in the world.

At the prodding of the White House, Democratic Congressional leaders have agreed to pursue a plan that would protect major health care legislation from Republican opposition by shielding it from last-minute Senate filibusters.

The aggressive approach reflects the big political claim that President Obama is staking on health care, and with it his willingness to face Republican wrath in order to guarantee that the Democrats, with their substantial majority in the Senate, could not be thwarted by minority tactics.

While some Democratic senators were reluctant to embrace the arrangement, Mr. Obama made clear at a White House session on Thursday afternoon that he favored it, people with knowledge of the session said.

Mr. Obama has given way in some battles with Congress, but the new stance suggests he may be much less willing to compromise when it comes to health care, his top legislative priority, even if it means a bitter partisan fight.

The no-filibuster arrangement is fiercely opposed by Republican leaders, who say health care is too important to be exempted from the Senate rules that usually mean major bills must win support from 60 senators.

At the White House meeting this week, Mr. Obama told senators from both parties that he did not want a health care overhaul to fail if it came up a vote shy of the 60 needed to break filibusters, the people with knowledge of the session said. Republicans have used the procedure themselves in the past, but Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, told Mr. Obama in the meeting that that approach was likely to heighten partisan tensions in Congress.

Times reporter Carl Hulse fails to mention that although Republicans have used the procedure in the past, they have not abused it to enact an enormous new government program.

Obama doesn't care. He wants to push disastrous socialized health care down our throats by a simple majority vote. It's underhanded and sleazy.

What's happening to our country is unbelievable.

The arrangement is spelled out in a tentative budget agreement reached Thursday night between Congressional leaders and the White House, allowing health legislation that meets budget targets to be approved by a simple Senate majority, under a process known as reconciliation.

Again, Hulse fails to report that the deal is purely a Democrat creation, that Republicans were barred from participation.

...“Virtually everyone who has been part of these discussions recognizes that reconciliation is not the preferred way to write this legislation,” said Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “But the administration wants to have a reconciliation instruction as an insurance policy.”

Obama is a liar. He doesn't want to work with Republicans.

He's abusing his power. He's out of control.

I can't stand it. I can't stand what's happening to the country. I can't stand what Obama is doing. I can't stand it.