This past Sunday, the New York Times ran an editorial supporting the plan of some Democrats to use the reconciliation procedure to by-pass a filibuster of health insurance reform in the Senate by Republicans. Reconciliation requires only 50 votes from Senators plus an additional tie-breaking vote from the Vice-President to pass in the Senate. To have the Times taking this position was not, in itself, surprising. But the editorial agonized an awful lot over the contemplated move by the Democrats, and it is worth commenting on various aspects of this agonizing over the Democrats using reconciliation.
First, according to the Times, “If the Democrats want to enact health care reform this year, they appear to have little choice but to adopt a high-risk, go-it-alone, majority-rules strategy.” This framing immediately casts the use of majority rule in reconciliation as “high-risk” and somehow regrettable. Why, what’s high-risk about it? What’s wrong with passing legislation by majority rule?
The high risk for the Times is the possibility that not all of the intended health care reform might fit within the rules of reconciliation processes and might not survive challenges by Republicans. This, however, doesn’t seem very “high risk” to me because there’s no need to include all of health care reform in a single bill passed under reconciliation, but only those aspects that need to be passed with 50+ votes. The Times mentions that an additional bill, will be needed to pass measures not treatable through reconciliation, so they recognize this point. But they don’t seem to recognize that this may well not entail risk, if what is essential, and disputed, can be passed under reconciliation.
This brings us to “majority rule.” Again, what’s wrong with it? It’s all that’s required by the constitution, and the Times never explains why acting in accordance with the constitution is somehow wrong, or something to agonize about. The Times next goes on to say:
”We say this with considerable regret because a bipartisan compromise would be the surest way to achieve comprehensive reforms with broad public support. But the ideological split between the parties is too wide — and the animosities too deep — for that to be possible.”
So, the move is regretted because bipartisan compromise in Congress translates to broad public support for health insurance reforms. But is this really true? What if the bipartisan compromise produces a bad bill that the public doesn’t like? What if a partisan bill turns out to be a good bill that the public loves? Both of these things have happened before in American history. For example, when Bush 41 compromised with the Democrats on raising taxes during his Administration, the bipartisan nature of the tax increase didn’t make the bill popular. On the other hand, when Franklin Roosevelt passed Social Security without Republican support that didn’t hurt the bill’s popularity at all. While these two examples don’t prove the case, I think there is little empirical evidence in American history to support the view that: “. . . bipartisan compromise in Congress translates to broad public support. . . “ And, I also think that it is just not so that there is a high correlation between bipartisanship in Congress and broad public support across individuals of all parties. This idea is just one of the myths of bipartisanship that the Times and other MSM outlets have adopted as articles of insider faith.
The Times also offered this additional bit of wisdom:
”Superficially seductive calls to scale down the effort until the recession ends or to take time for further deliberations should be ignored. There has been more than enough debate and the recession will almost certainly be over before the major features of reform kick in several years from now. Those who fear that a trillion-dollar reform will add to the nation’s deficit burden should remember that these changes are intended to be deficit-neutral over the next decade.”
While I agree with the Times that we should not wait to pass a bill, I found its faith that the recession would be over before the time when the Public Option will become operative really touching. I also found myself wondering how they could be so sure that we are not looking at a “double-dip” recession, which some top-flight economists who predicted the current recession still expect. Its assurances to those who fear greater deficits “that these changes are intended to be deficit neutral . . . “, also seemed to be empty of everything but faith in some long-term forecasts of CBO that are bound to be unreliable, as most long-term forecasts are.
The Times also believes that: “as the midterm elections approach, it will be even harder for legislators to take controversial stands,” a piece of conventional wisdom, that while often true, depends certainly on the sense of urgency that attaches to any problem. If health insurance reform fails this year, and private insurance costs go up in January by 8%, while bankruptcies due to medical insurance bills, and deaths due to lack of coverage continue at the same rate, I’ll bet that there will an uproar in the next session that forces Congress to take up reform again and pass a bill before the 2010 elections. This is not 1993-94. And Congress and the Administration won’t be able to take this issue off the table if they fail to resolve it. In other words, the Times little bit of conventional wisdom about the effect of midterm is also likely to be less than reliable as a basis for forecasting what will happen in 2010.
The Times support of passing a health insurance bill through reconciliation is welcome, but its agonizing over whether the Democrats should be using the process is based on a number of assumptions and claims that are questionable at best. The Times ought to keep the support, but lose the agonizing. And the Democrats should tackle reconciliation with gusto, since it’s perfectly legal, and also consistent with the first principle of Democracy – majority rule.
(Also posted at firedoglake.com where there may be more comments)