The Democrats want the health bill passed come hell or high water (which we have a lot of in New Jersey right now!). Instead of a vote, they are going to try a process called reconciliation. The process was created in 1974 when Congress adopted organizational structures and rules to pass the annual budget. Unfortunately, this led to abuse and provisions were adopted that had nothing to do with the budget. To prevent this, the Byrd Rule was adopted and was made permanent in 1990.

Reconciliation has been used in the past for 22 bills, 19 which were signed by the President. All of these bills had to do with taxation and spending. Some of the bills included cutting welfare, food stamp programs, changes to federal employee pay and both Clinton’s and Bush’s tax cuts.

The health care bill is more about spending money than it is about taxation or budgetary matters. Newt Gingrich has a great article explaining reconciliation and why the health care bill doesn’t fit.

And while the Democrats are claiming that the bill is “deficit neutral”, Rep. Paul Ryan explains how it will increase the deficit by $460 billion in the first 10 years and by another $1.4 trillion in the second ten years.