NATIONAL HEALTH CARE IN 20 HRS.

Late last week President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders agreed to use "budget reconciliation" if necessary to jam a massive health-care bill through Congress.

This decision is a deeply troublesome attempt to circumvent the normal and customary workings of American democracy, and it promises bitter divisiveness under an administration that has made repeated promises to reach across the partisan divide.

Reconciliation was established in 1974 as a procedure to make modest adjustments to mandatory spending such as farm programs, student loans and Medicare that were already well established in law. Over the past 35 years, it has been used only 22 times.

The power of a reconciliation bill is this:

• Senate rules allow only 20 hours of debate and then passage with a simple majority of 51 votes.
• This represents a lightning strike in the normal deliberative time-frame of the Senate.
• The historic precedent of open debate, and the requirement of 60 votes to close debate, are completely short-circuited.

Budget reconciliation was never intended to push through dramatic and expansive new programs. It was created as a way to help a reluctant Congress curb spending, reduce deficits, and cut the debt.

Moreover, changes made under reconciliation expire after five or 10 years, depending on the budget. This is clearly not the appropriate process for implementing significant new entitlement...

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