The True Threat; No Reconciliation

America beware!!! Obama’s threat of using reconciliation could be the ultimate screw job for members of his own party. Reconciliation is a parliamentary process that is somewhat complicated, and relies on trust and faith. Obama has managed to back stab pretty much everyone to whom he has made promises. House Blue Dog Democrats are next. The real danger for these folks isn’t reconciliation, it will be the lack of reconciliation.

Here is how it works. The House and the Senate have passed radically different versions of health care reform. Under normal circumstances, the differences would be sent to a joint to committee who would iron out the differences and then send the revised bill back to the House and the Senate for passage. But the Dems have lost their super majority in the Senate, and the revised bill would be subject to filibuster thanks to Massachusetts’s Scott Brown.

Since the Senate is now stopped, the House would have to pass the Senate bill exactly as it is written. There are insufficient votes to do that for numerous reasons, including the more liberal abortion provisions in the Senate version.

So to get around that, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are telling the House of Representatives to pass the Senate bill exactly as it is written, and they “promise” to make changes afterwards under the guise of budget reconciliation, which only needs 51 votes in the Senate to pass.

But there is a big problem here. If the House passes the Senate bill as written, that is an irrevocable act. There is no guaranty that any of the promises made to moderate Democrats would be kept. In fact, given the track record of these folks, it is highly unlikely. All Obama has to do is sign the bill, and it is law. This is a really great political slime ball trick.

Oh, they would put on a good show, but the first excuse Obama and his cabal of progressive cronies get to scrap the process, they will do so and the Senate bill becomes law. They could say too many Republicans are standing in the way of reform, so we will just have to take the bill as it stands.

He screws the Republicans. He screws the public. But mostly, he will screw the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. I know this; Obama knows this; and the Blue Dog Democrats know this. It is a dangerous game, where everyone will end up losing except for Obama, and he doesn’t care. And America will pay the price.