Senate Dem's To Plan To Subvert

Bloomberg is reporting that Congressional Democrats will attempt to ram through the nationalization of 1/6th of the American economy through the "reconciliation" process wherein only 51 affirmative votes are necessary to achieve passage of certain spending bills. By Jonathan D. Salant

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Even if Democrats lose the Jan. 19 special election to pick a new Massachusetts senator, Congress may still pass a health-care overhaul by using a process called reconciliation, a top House Democrat said.

That procedure requires 51 votes rather than the 60 needed to prevent Republicans from blocking votes on President Barack Obama’s top legislative priorities. That supermajority is at risk as the Massachusetts race has tightened.

“Even before Massachusetts and that race was on the radar screen, we prepared for the process of using reconciliation,” said Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“Getting health-care reform passed is important,” Van Hollen said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “Reconciliation is an option.”

Using reconciliation would likely force Democrats to scale back their health-care plans. The procedure is designed to make deficit-cutting easier by reducing the number of votes needed to pass unpopular tax increases and spending cuts. Lawmakers can’t include policy changes that the parliamentarian deems have only an “incidental” connection to budget-cutting, and senators would need 60 votes to override those rulings.

If, as now seems possible Scott Brown wins the now vacant Senate seat in Massachusetts, and the Senate Dem's in fact do use the reconciliation process to pass this legislation, this will so enrage the country that the Dem's will lose just about every single contested Senate race this fall. As it is, 57% of likely voters are opposed to ALL of the possible convolutions of the health care bills before Congress...then the voter revolt in the fall will by ugly and pervasive.