Legal Commentary

Will Conrad Use The CBO To Kill The Health Bills?

By Big Tent Democrat

Greg Sargent reports that Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) says that is a possibility:

Conrad said that under Congressional rules, for a reconciliation fix to be “scored,” it’s not necessary that it become law, but it is necessary for it to have passed both houses of Congress before getting fixed. “For the scoring to change it has to have passed Congress, and that means both houses,” he said. “The only thing that works here is the House has to pass the Senate bill,” Conrad continued. “Then the House can initiate a reconciliation measure that would deal with a limited number of issues that score for budget purposes.” After that, the Senate would pass the same reconciliation fix, Conrad explained, because even on the fix itself the House must go first because the lower chamber must initiate “revenue bills.”

(Emphasis suppied.) Conrad is full of crap imo. He says "reconciliation rules" dictate this. He cites no provision of the rules for this nonsense. And indeed, it is not in the rules. David Waldman explains:

[I]t can't possibly make any difference how the reconciliation bill is scored after it's passed both houses, at least with respect to whether or not the reconciliation process can be used to pass it. That'd be completely illogical. So that can't really be what he's talking about, can it? Because by the time a reconciliation bill is passed by both houses, all the decisions regarding its eligibility will have been made already. If the scoring helps decide a reconciliation bill's eligibility for the expedited process, the score after it's passed can't have any bearing.

The reconciliation bill will have a standalone CBO score. Will that score reflect reality? Of course not. The CBO apparently will not take into account the Senate passed bill. But that has nothing to do with whether reconciliation bills can be passed.

Another thing Conrad is full of crap on is that the reconciliation bill must originate in the House. As the Senate amply demonstrated in passage of its health bill, the Senate can grab any House passed bill with revenue measures and strip it out and write its own bill.

Now why does this mean that the CBO could kill the health bills? Because I believe theHouse simply will not take the hard votes to pass the Stand Alone Senate bill, or even a reconciliation bill on trust that the Seante will act. The Senagte is utterly untrustworthy. No one trusts them and no one should trust them.

If Conrad plays this game, I think the current health bills die. Any Village Dems concerned about that?

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 02, 2010 (boomark / email).