Lindsey Graham is asked to respond to Harry Reid's statement that the GOP Should "Stop Crying" About Reconciliation: Senate Majority Leader Harry Rei
February 24, 2010

Lindsey Graham is asked to respond to Harry Reid's statement that the GOP Should "Stop Crying" About Reconciliation:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters Tuesday that Republicans "should stop crying" about the possible use of the parliamentary procedure known as budget reconciliation to pass a health care reform bill.

Reid said reconciliation had been used 21 times since 1981, mostly by Republicans when they were in control of the Senate for the passage of items like the Bush tax cuts. (Here's a handy chart of when the procedure has been used.)

Under reconciliation, Democrats would need a simple majority in the Senate to pass legislation, as opposed to the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. "They should stop crying about reconciliation as if it's never been done before," Reid said.

Of course Graham thinks this will be the "end of minority rights in the Senate" after the Republicans being the most obstructionist in history and the Democrats accepting 160 Republican amendments to this mess of a health care bill which is unfortunately already bipartisan. These Republicans continually count on the country listening to what they say as opposed to what they do. That doesn't stop Graham from calling getting what is a bipartisan bill passed on health care "arrogance on steroids" and calling this the "end of the Senate as you know it".

Sorry Lindsey. This has just been more of the Senate as we know it where what might be good bills go to die a slow death and Senators from states representing much less of the population than most of the large cities in the United States can muck up legislation for the rest of us who are not equally represented there. I'm just sick to death of the Democrats accepting Republican ideas without demanding some votes in return for caving into their wishes. It allows the likes of Graham here to continue to do their revisionist history on how none of their ideas were accepted.

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