Reid: GOP Should 'Stop Crying About Reconciliation'

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) began to make the case on Tuesday for using a majority-vote process to move the final piece of health care reform through the Senate and he slammed the procedure's GOP critics. Known as budget reconciliation, the maneuver requires 51 votes and can't be filibustered.

The GOP has been demanding that Democrats take reconciliation off the table in advance of a bipartisan health care summit on Thursday.

"I would recommend they go back and look at history. Since 1981, reconciliation has been used 21 times," Reid told reporters after the weekly lunch with his Democratic caucus.

He insisted that Democrats would go to the bipartisan summit with an open mind and attempt to win Republican support, but if that didn't happen, "nothing's off the table."

"Realistically, they should stop crying about reconciliation as if it's never been done before," Reid advised the GOP. It's been done in almost every Congress. And they're the ones who used it more than anyone else."

Reid then rattled off a list of Republican legislative achievements that were pushed through the Senate. "Most of the stuff in the Contract for America was done with reconciliation; tax cuts, done with reconciliation; Medicare [prescription drug benefits], done with reconciliation," said Reid.

WATCH:

For background on and a history of reconciliation, see this report.

Comments

[pyradius]

08:14 PM on 02/26/2010

Let's not forget how much the Bush tax cuts really cost us:

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/study-bush-tax-cuts-cost-more-twice-m

http://www.ctj.org/pdf/bushtaxcutsvshealthcare.pdf

[Dajo]

03:37 PM on 02/25/2010

Thank goodness for Nancy Pelosi and President Obama. They will keep "Hairless Reid "from mucking this one up...

[Dajo]

03:34 PM on 02/25/2010

On a good day Harry Reid is a spineless wimp. On a bad day he is as obstructionist as the worst Republican. His whole pathetic career can be sumed up as follows; "Harry Reid has always demonstrated that he has the ability to snach defeate from the jaws of victory" Pathetic...

[Chise67]

01:24 AM on 02/25/2010

Reconciliation is nothing new to healcare matters.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3059

[hibeam]

09:46 PM on 02/24/2010

What a pitiful sad loser this guy is. He has a majority in the senate and he spends all of his time blaming the republicans. I can't wait until he is voted out in Nevada. Even his own state can not wait to get rid of him.

[From the Raft]

09:31 PM on 02/24/2010

Reid should stop crying about Republicans and kick some @$$!!

[Xenopus]

08:16 PM on 02/24/2010

Until the Democrats call out the Republicans on each and every hypocritcal stance they take, nothing will get done. With everything that happens in Washington, the Republicans act as if they have been nothing but pure of heart, when, in fact, they have been the 'worst of the worst' in budget deficits, unpaid programs, earmarks, wars, on.....and on......and on.

[lagumbo]

07:25 PM on 02/24/2010

You go Mr. Reid. It's about time the republicans be made aware they are no long the majority. The do not run this country anymore. They lost.

[yvonne61]

07:05 PM on 02/24/2010

talking about unempolyment benefits on c-span 2 GOP no again

[realpolitik78]

05:27 PM on 02/24/2010

I'm sure some one already posted this link but I think its worth taking a look at. The Orwellian way these policiticians (both parties) switch positions and pretend otherwise is re-pulsive, but I must say Mr. Reid is especially re-pulsive and a complete h-ack.

http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-dems-in-2005-51-vote-nuclear-option-is-arrogant-power-grab-against-the-founders-intent/

[ReedYoung]

05:21 PM on 02/24/2010

1 Million!
http://pol.moveon.org/virtualmarch10/action.html

Now, Senators Bingaman & Rockefeller and any others who claim to be "a strong supporter of the public option" but won't put your names on the list at whipcongress.com:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/24/155120/418

[k6007]

08:00 PM on 02/24/2010

Yes!

[wizzardly]

03:14 PM on 02/24/2010

Hey Harry, after 2010 you are going to eat your words. It'll be 2005 when all the dems were crying about the nuclear option. You are all a bunch of lying hypocrites with a President being the biggest liar and hypocrit of all.

[wizzardly]

03:21 PM on 02/24/2010

I goofed. Come November you will be beating your wife because you won't have a job.

[ReedYoung]

03:22 PM on 02/24/2010

Ready ... Fire! ... Aim.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/24/gop-summit-attendees-supp_n_475007.html
"I fully recognize that Republicans have in the past engaged in using reconciliation to further the party's agenda," McCain said in a speech before the Heritage Foundation in late March 2009. "I wish it had not been done then, and I hope it will not be done now that the groundwork has been laid."

[Miketou]

03:02 PM on 02/24/2010

It's about time this dude snapped on a pair!

[Bronxdude]

02:49 PM on 02/24/2010

Harry: Man-up, take a testosterone injection and get the job done! Public Option NOW!

[Bronxdude]

02:48 PM on 02/24/2010

Republicans used reconciliation 37 times during the Reagan years.