Reconcile This!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a letter to his Republican counterpart, said that Democrats plan to use reconciliation to pass final health-care legislation.

Many Republicans now are demanding that we simply ignore the progress we’ve made,” Reid said in a letter today to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “We will not. We will finish the job,’’ adding that “we plan to use the regular budget-reconciliation process."

As you know, the vast majority of bills developed through reconciliation were passed by Republican Congresses and signed into law by Republican Presidents - including President Bush's massive, budget-busting tax breaks for multi-millionaires. Given
this history, one might conclude that Republicans believe a majority vote is sufficient to increase the deficit and benefit the super-rich, but not to reduce the deficit and benefit the middle class. Alternatively, perhaps Republicans believe a majority vote is appropriate only when Republicans are in the majority. Either way, we disagree.

Paul Krugman writes:

Wow. Harry Reid's letter to Mitch McConnell.
As Ezra says, this can be summed up as: Reconcile this.