2 + 2 = 4

Santorum Ties Himself Into Knots Justifying Congress’ Use Of Reconciliation During The Bush Years

On an RNC conference call today, Politico’s Ben Smith asked former Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum why he believes it would be an “abomination” for Congress to use the budget reconciliation process — which requires 51 instead of 60 votes — to pass health care reform, considering that the Republican Congress also used it to pass bills, such as President Bush’s tax cuts.

Santorum tried to name every way he could think of that might justify his position, including: 1) unlike health care, a tax bill is a “revenue bill” and “affects the budget,” 2) health care is “major policy initiative,” and 3) the reconciliation process will make a “huge and complex” bill even “more complex.”

When Smith pointed out that Republicans used the reconciliation process to push through drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — which is also arguably a major policy initiative that isn’t just a revenue bill — Santorum tried to argue that it wasn’t AS major, so it was accceptable:

SANTORUM: Well, again, you’re talking about a situation where, again, the biggest thing about drilling is certainly it has an impact on a small chunk of land in northern Alaska, and it has an impact on the federal revenue, but it’s not a particularly complex thing. You’re talking about drilling holes, as opposed to rejiggering and rewriting and reconstructing the entire health care system of this country. And the impact on the 350 million Americans for drilling a few holes in Alaska is fairly minor, as far as how it affects their daily lives. As opposed to — and by the way, it’s fairly minor on the economy, certainly in the short term, a little more in the long term. But again, nothing compared to what we’re talking about here with health care.

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols