Republicans are warning of ominous political consequences if the Democrats use budget reconciliation rules to help pass health care reform. It would be “a huge mistake,” averred Sen. Olympia Snowe, the chief object of Senate Democrats’ unconsummated quest for bipartisan cooperation on health reform.
Evidently, for the Democrats to resort to reconciliation would be an intolerable abuse of congressional rules, whereas the Republican habit of filibustering everything in sight is perfectly within bounds. Passing health measures by a simple majority vote, the GOP maintains, would be the political equivalent of nuclear war: It would pulverize what little remains of comity and good will in Washington.
It’s a little late for the GOP to be worrying about that. Nor are Republicans more convincing when they complain that it’s somehow illegitimate for President Obama to start the bidding in tomorrow’s health care summit with a plan derived from bills that have passed both houses of Congress.
“I don’t think the people like this any more than…the approach that came down the pike earlier,” House Republican Whip Eric Cantor said. “People are incredulous. I just think they are wondering, does the White House not get it?” He was referring, of course, to polls showing majority opposition to the main health care proposals before Congress.
Cantor seems to be arguing that shifting public attitudes matter more than election results, and that Congress shouldn’t pass legislation that doesn’t poll well. Does the House minority whip not get representative democracy? (It was a good thing he wasn’t around when Lincoln pushed Congress to enact a draft to win the Civil War.) And if Republicans really are so sure Democrats will self-destruct politically by passing Obamacare, why not lash them on?
One reason might be that the health care summit will highlight the embarrassing fact that Cantor and company offer no serious alternative to the president’s approach. (House Republicans last year labored mightily to produce a mouse of a bill that would cover just three million of America’s 40-plus million uninsured.) The real choice is between the president’s far-from-perfect health care reform, and none at all.
And in a way that’s too bad, because if we had a serious opposition, it might help the president push back against some of the bad ideas coming from his own party. An example: under pressure from labor and liberals, Obama has drastically scaled down and delayed an excise tax on expensive employer-paid health plans. Not only does that reduce revenue needed to pay for health reform, it also barely grazes an open-ended federal tax subsidy that economists believe contributes greatly to medical cost inflation. Rather than insist on limiting that government subsidy, many Republicans claim it’s a violation of Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class.
In a similar vein, the Republicans have lambasted Obama’s proposal to cut hundreds of billions from Medicare to defray the expenses of expanding coverage. And so in its blindly partisan attacks on Obama’s push for health reform, the GOP has managed to 1) shred its credibility as a force for fiscal responsibility; 2) thwart efforts to rein in runaway health care costs; and 3) reinforce their well-deserved reputation as a party that measures compassion by the thimble-full.
On health care, the Republicans have hit the trifecta of demagoguery – which is why their complaints about parliamentary foul play ring hollow.
