The time has come to stop fucking around and use reconciliation [View All]

[grantcart]

Lieberman, Nelson and Snowe need to find out exactly how irrelevent they really are.

Use reconciliation and use it often until there is an agreement to reduce cloture to 55 (or better yet 51).

Reid should also note that Reagan taught us how to do it and in the future the Democrats will not protest if the Republicans get 51 votes and want to pass a budget related item either.


As Matt Yglesias notes

Ronald Reagan's groundbreaking tax cuts in 1981 were passed through reconciliation. So was Bill Clinton's 1993 budget. So were George W. Bush's tax cuts. Under Bush, congress even tried to open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling via reconciliation--they failed because they couldn't get the fifty votes. There'd be nothing unusual about passing significant legislation through reconciliation. Nor would a reconciliation bill necessarily be an "inferior" one. It just might have to have a more limited subject matter.


http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/09/baucus-talking-reconciliation-ap-using-gop-jargon.php



More here including Republicans and Palin's attempt to open ANWAR on a budget reconciliation vote.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/02/demystifying-the-medias-t_n_275491.html


On edit graywarrior has a similar thread with a petition to move to reconciliation now here

http://act.boldprogressives.org/cms/sign/porescue/?source=taf