Whether Republicans like it or not, reconciliation has been used 22 times since President Carter was in office. Of those 22 times, 16 were Republican lead efforts to sidestep a filibuster. And contrary to what Republican hacks are saying, it has been used to pass big bills.

Watch this video mashup and you’ll get the gist of it.

The filibuster is the issue I’m tracking today. There’s a lot going on with Senators seeking to change rules, Republicans threatening more filibusters and pundits trying to figure it all out.

Here’s what I have so far.

Former Senate parliamentarian: Biden could play big role in reconciliation process Washington Post

Former Senate parliamentarian Robert Dove discussed the history of reconciliation on MSNBC Monday morning. “Reconciliation has been used a lot, and I would never use the term illegitimate with regard to reconciliation,” he said of the Senate maneuver, which was created in 1974 and revised in 1980 to restrict it to purely budgetary matters.

Political systems of nations: Germany Ezra Klein Washington Post

As the dysfunctions of our political system have become a more prevalent theme on this blog, I’ve gotten a large number of requests for a series exploring the political systems of other countries. How England runs its health-care system is a lot better understood than how England passed the law that created its health-care system, even though the latter is arguably more important for our purposes.

Solid Evidence Emerges of Senate Republicans’ Unconstitutional Abuse of Power Alternet

Nearly 300 Bills Have Passed in House Since Current 111th Congress Took Office Nearly 14 Months Ago — Many With Broad Bipartisan Support — Only to be Tied Up by Unprecedented Brick Wall of Republican Filibusters in Senate; Minority Party Has No Constitutional Authority to Hold All Legislation Hostage by forcing 60-Vote ‘Super Majority’ in 100-Member Chamber

Should Democrats Call The GOP Filibuster Threat? Press

Holding up bills in the Senate is the Republican plan to prevent Obama and Democrats from scoring any political points. To accomplish this goal, Republicans are threatening to filibuster more than ever, and some Democrats want Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to call their bluff.

Hypocrisy abounds on filibuster issue Inside Bay Area

“THE RIGHT to extended debate is never more important than when one party controls Congress and the White House, and in these cases the filibuster serves as a check on power and preserves our limited government.”

“Change in the Senate rules — that really, I think, would change the character of the Senate forever (and would be) simply majoritarian absolute power on either side (of Congress), and that’s not what the Founders intended.”

Analysis: Republicans setting filibuster record Associate Press

The filibuster — tool of obstruction in the U.S. Senate — is alternately blamed and praised for wilting President Barack Obama’s ambitious agenda. Some even say it’s made the nation ungovernable.

Hartford Courant Crossing Party Lines

Monday, Republican Sens. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Kit Bond of Missouri and George Voinovich of Ohio broke ranks with their party and voted to cut off debate on the jobs legislation. The vote to end debate was 62-30. The bill passed the Senate and now faces action in the House.

Holding up bills in the Senate is the Republican plan to prevent Obama and Democrats from scoring any political points. To accomplish this goal, Republicans are threatening to filibuster more than ever, and some Democrats want Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to call their bluff.

“It’s not only good policy but good politics to call them out now,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) told US News and World Report last month. “The American people need to see who really is the roadblock here.”

Several House Democrats are saying it’s time to stop running away from the Republican filibuster threats.

Up until now, “we’ve been playing into the hands of people who don’t want to get anything done,” Grijalva told US News and World Report’s Anna Mulrine.

But a modern filibuster is likely to be much less satisfying than some House Democrats imagine. “It reflects a common misperception among House members in the U.S. – that somehow you can force Republicans to filibuster in such a way that it will be embarrassing to them,” Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers, told Mulrine.

Baker said that the days when Senators read from the phone book or waxed poetic about old girlfriends are no more. “This isn’t Strom Thurmond’s 1957 filibuster against civil rights,” Baker said.

However, polls show that most Americans believe that it’s Democrats who are trying to get something accomplished and Republicans are merely obstructionists.

“The Democrats don’t need the public to be watching the debates with bated breath,” Duke University Political Scientist David Rohde told Mulrine. “What the Democrats need is the public to think that they are trying to act and that the Republicans are trying to stop them.”

Steven Hurst of the Associated Press reported today that based on the number of cloture votes, the GOP’s frequency of filibusters and the threats to use it are record setting.

A cloture vote is a way for the majority to test whether it has the 60 votes needed to end debate.

Last year, the first of the 111th Congress, there were a record 112 cloture votes. In the first two months of 2010, the number already exceeds 40.

That means, with 10 months left to run in the 111th Congress, Republicans have turned to the filibuster or threatened its use at a pace that will more than triple the old record. The 104th Congress in 1995-96 — when Republicans held a 53-47 majority — required 50 cloture votes.

Democratic Senators Tom Harkin and Jeanne Shaheen introduced legislation last month to change Senate rules by lowering the number of votes needed to end a filibuster. But Majority Leader Reid sees this is as nonstarter. It takes 67 votes to change Senate rules.

Obama meets with GOP

It lasted more than seven hours. It was often unbelievably boring. A bunch of mostly old white guys sitting around a table bickering at one another. That was today’s health care summit and nothing of substance will come of it.

The bottom line for Republicans is that they want to kill health care reform no matter what. And the bottom line for Democrats is that have to get health care reform through congress one way or another.

So one side is unequivocally opposed and the other a staunch proponent of health care reform.

There was an exchange between President Obama and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley that highlights this deadlock.

Sen. Chuck Grassley

“First of all,” Grassley said, “if anybody says that Medicare Advantage is a subsidy going to insurance companies, let me say what the statute says. The statute says that … 75 percent goes to beneficiaries and benefits, and 25 percent to the federal government.”

“I’m sorry Chuck, I just want to make sure about that,” Obama said, “that doesn’t sound right to me because that would mean 100 percent of it is going either to the benefits or the federal government, which means that the insurance companies aren’t making any money of it.”

“Seventy-five percent to beneficiaries and benefits,” Grassley snapped, “and 25 percent to the federal government.”

At which point Obama turned to Vice President Biden and presumably said something along the lines of, “What the hell is talking? That’s 100 percent. The insurance companies don’t get any money for selling prescription drugs to seniors. Is he drunk?”

“Probably Mr. President,” Biden threw his hand up in disgust.

“It takes 60 votes in the Senate to overrule them, so I’m not questioning the CBO,” Grassley said fidgeting in his chair.

Actually, the Congressional Budget Office does not create law and does not rule over the Senate in any way, shape or form. Grassley is making up Senate rules out of whole cloth.

“For the first time in the 225 year history of the country,” Grassley said, “the federal government’s telling you you’ve got to buy something.”

The Iowa Senator said he knows his constituents and “that just doesn’t make a lot sense to people in the grassroots of the Midwest.”

Actually the United States has been around for 233 years and citizens are forced to pay federal income taxes, Medicare and Social Security.

“Do you think we’re going to sit around in rural American, or even urban, downtown urban America, in the poverty parts of the city,” Grassley said, “that we’re going to let hospitals close down?”

Who’s closing hospitals?

At the end of his speech Grassley said, “You’ve got to take into consideration the consequences of the actions, or the unproven promises of cuts that aren’t going to materialize.”

His argument was that the Democrats bill relies on future congresses to make cuts and Grassley said that they aren’t going to have any more guts than we do, and this Congress doesn’t even have the stomach to mess with Medicare.

Obama seemed a bit shocked by Grassley’s remarks and tone, and had this to say.

“If the notion is that we can’t make some hard decisions about how entitlements work, because it’s just not realistic. Nobody’s going to have the guts to do it. Then we’re in big trouble.

Because that means that federal and state budgets, and then business budgets and family budgets, they’re all going to be gobbled up by this thing.

So I hope that we’ve got the courage to make some of these changes.”

Sen. Harry Reid Feb. 23, 2010

Here’s Harry Reid telling Republicans to quit whining about Democrats threatening to use reconciliation to pass health care reform and bypassing the GOP filibuster. Transcript and video.

The question is, is reconciliation the only way we can do health care reform. The answer to that is ‘no.’

But I’ve been told that my Republican friends are lamenting reconciliation.

But I would recommend for them, to go back and look at history.

Since 1981, reconciliation has been used 21 times. The vast majority of those reconciliation efforts have been by Republicans.

So, we have … nothing’s off the table. We have to take a look at that.

But realistically, they should stop crying about reconciliation as if it’s never been done before. It’s done almost every Congress. And they’re the ones that used it more than anyone else.

The Contract for America, most of the stuff in the Contract for America was done with reconciliation.

Tax cuts. Done with reconciliation.

Medicare. Done with reconciliation.

So, they better go back and look at history a little bit.

David Nexon had a big problem. An early version of national health care legislation contained a $40 billion tax aimed squarely at members of the medical device trade association he represents.

Read Chicago Sun story explaining US failing legislative process.

The headline might leave a salty, perhaps putrid, taste in your mouth, but Greg Sargent’s blog post “Journalists Cheerfully Urinating On Senate Bill’s ‘Ideological’ Critics” makes a good point.

In his post, Sargent takes the media to task for lumping all liberal opponents of the diluted Senate bill into one category.

“It would really be nice if certain Beltway journalists could get it into their heads that the Senate bill’s critics on the left have actual substantive differences with the bill’s proponents, and are not motivated solely by ‘ideology,’ whatever the hell that means.”

Sargent’s upset. Read his blog post.

As the health-care debate made its way to the Senate, the chamber’s top Democrat refused to take tactical steps that would have allowed for the passage of meaningful legislation with a majority vote.

Read The Nation’s John Nichols complete story.

The compromise in the Senate bill to drop the public option and expand Medicare to people 55 and over is a joke.

Pushing the most expensive group of uninsured into Medicare and forcing the relatively healthy young people to purchase private insurance is great if you’re an insurance company.

What should happen is that Medicare should be expanded to include everyone. If Congress did that, the young participants could help alleviate the risk of older and more sickly people. And when those young people get old, the next generation helps alleviate their risk.

That’s the power of collective action.

If Obama signs a bill that merely shifts the most costly demographic into Medicare and leaves the rest of us to fend for ourselves in the not-so-free health insurance market, health care costs will continue to skyrocket, people will continue to die and we’re all going to be left paying for it for generations.

Let’s face it, the Senate is a broken legislative body. We need a real revolution in this country, one that results in real change and puts the people in power. There ain’t no power like people power ’cause people power never stops.

Senate Health Care Bill

Senators are debating health care reform right now. Republicans say it’s too expensive, raises taxes, cuts Medicare and the American people aren’t buying it. Democrats contend that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will reduce the overall cost of health care, improve access to health care and needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Read the full 2,074 page bill for yourself.
Watch the debate Live on C-SPAN2
Ron Brownstein does a nice job of explaining the bill if you don’t want to wad through it yourself

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said Tuesday that she intends to vote for the Senate Finance Committee’s health care reform package. She cautioned that her vote should be seen as a sign of her faith in the process going forward, not as support for the final package that will arrive on the Senate floor.

Read the HuffingtonPost story about Snowe’s announcement

Here’s the transcript and video of President Obama’s Weekly Address yesterday about health care reform. Obama praised the Senate Finance bill. He said the bill would make coverage affordable to millions of Americans. Health care for all is now health insurance for all. This year’s health care reform has been brought to you by Cigna.

Source: White House

The historic movement to bring real, meaningful health insurance reform to the American people gathered momentum this week as we approach the final days of this debate. Having worked on this issue for the better part of a year, the Senate Finance Committee is finishing deliberations on their version of a health insurance reform bill that will soon be merged with other reform bills produced by other Congressional committees.

After evaluating the Finance Committee’s bill, the Congressional Budget Office – an office that provides independent, nonpartisan analysis – concluded that the legislation would make coverage affordable for millions of Americans who don’t have it today. It will bring greater security to Americans who have coverage, with new insurance protections. And, by attacking waste and fraud within the system, it will slow the growth in health care costs, without adding a dime to our deficits.

This is another milestone on what has been a long, hard road toward health insurance reform. In recent months, we’ve heard every side of every argument from both sides of the aisle. And rightly so – health insurance reform is a complex and critical issue that deserves a vigorous national debate, and we’ve had one. The approach that is emerging includes the best ideas from Republicans and Democrats, and people across the political spectrum.

In fact, what’s remarkable is not that we’ve had a spirited debate about health insurance reform, but the unprecedented consensus that has come together behind it. This consensus encompasses everyone from doctors and nurses to hospitals and drug manufacturers.

And earlier this week, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg came out in support of reform, joining two former Republican Senate Majority Leaders: Bob Dole and Dr. Bill Frist, himself a cardiac surgeon. Dr. Louis Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human Services under President George H.W. Bush, supports reform. As does Republican Tommy Thompson, a former Wisconsin governor and Secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush. These distinguished leaders understand that health insurance reform isn’t a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but an American issue that demands a solution.

Still, there are some in Washington today who seem determined to play the same old partisan politics, working to score political points, even if it means burdening this country with an unsustainable status quo. A status quo of rising health care costs that are crushing our families, our businesses, and our government. A status quo of diminishing coverage that is denying millions of hardworking Americans the insurance they need. A status quo that gives big insurance companies the power to make arbitrary decisions about your health care. That is a status quo I reject. And that is a status quo the American people reject.

The distinguished former Congressional leaders who urged us to act on health insurance reform spoke of the historic moment at hand and reminded us that this moment will not soon come again. They called on members of both parties seize this opportunity to finally confront a problem that has plagued us for far too long.

That is what we are called to do at this moment. That is the spirit of national purpose that we must summon right now. Now is the time to rise above the politics of the moment. Now is the time to come together as Americans. Now is the time to meet our responsibilities to ourselves and to our children, and secure a better, healthier future for generations to come. That future is within our grasp. So, let’s go finish the job.

We all hate paying taxes, but we still have to pay – unless you’re a corporation with a phony office in the Cayman Islands.

The Hill reported today on a Senate bill limiting the ban on corporate tax avoidance (cough evasion).

“A spending bill moving through the Senate would limit a ban on federal contracts for companies that put most of their operations outside the U.S. for tax purposes.

Language in the Senate financial services and general government appropriations bill would loosen a prohibition first instituted in the 2002 Homeland Security Act.”

So there you have it. Corporations continue to run the country like an organized crime syndicate and politicians as their fixers in the capitol.

Senate Finance Committee health care bill Oct. 2, 2009

On Friday, the Senate Finance Committee approved its amended health care reform bill. It’s called “America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.” You can read it yourself here.

It doesn’t include a public health care plan and apparently does little more than make health insurance companies richer. Great job Senators.

Senate Finance Committee health care bill Sept. 16, 2009

Before I listen to the experts misrepresent the details of the latest health care plan from Congress, I read through the Senate Finance Committee health care bill released today.

There’s no public health care plan to compete with private for-profit insurance companies. There is a provision for setting up health care cooperatives. The bill prohibits denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions or dropping people when they need expensive care. The bill puts caps on the amount of money people will have to pay for health care each year. Everyone will be required to have health insurance. There’s a laundry list of tax credits to help people purchase health insurance on the open market. The bulk of the bill deals with modifications of Medicare, none of which I understand.

The biggest issue for me is the lack of a public insurance option. In principle, the co-op idea sounds good, but I can’t see how these small co-ops will be able to provide any real competition to drive down the cost of health care – supposedly the goal of health care reform. If everyone is required to have health insurance, the private health insurance industry will only get larger, and with the only competition these tiny co-ops, the cost of health care will not go down.

While there are a slew of tax credits to supposedly reduce the cost of health insurance, there appear to be some tax increases as well. Health savings accounts will now by taxed. “The additional tax on distribution from an HSA that are not used for qualified medical expenses is increased to 20 percent of the disbursed amount.”

Flexible spending arrangements under cafeteria plans will be capped. “[S]alary reductions by an employee for a taxable year for purposes of coverage under a Health FSA under a cafeteria plan are limited to $2,000.”

So it’s a mixed bag of tax credits, tax increases, changes to Medicare, the creation of health care co-ops and a requirement that everyone have health insurance. Now I’m going to see what the experts have to say about all this.

Read the entire bill.
Wall Street Journal coverage.
New York Times’ Prescription blog post about the Baucus bill.
Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim’s story about the Senate Finance bill.
Christian Science Monitor story about the bill.
The Guardian story.

Senate Finance Committee health care bill Sept. 16, 2009

It’s called “America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.” I’ve not read the entire bill yet, but I’m posting it here immediately for everyone to look through. It’s 223 pages, so I’ll need a minute to make sense of it. Read this bill, it’s going to be the topic of discussion for the coming weeks. We should all know what it says so we can call bull when we hear it.

Chairman Mark’s America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009