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What The Hell Is "Reconciliation"?
And it's shortcomings for progressives. Plus: other short nuggets
| Jonathan Tasini | Jan 22 |
A little meta preview here: looking to write up some upcoming “what the hell…” on student debt and other topics—this newsletter, as I get into a bit of a regular schedule (it’s been tough, honestly, so far because paying work gets in the way, you know?) will do a lot of what I’ve done for many years: try to break down economic ideas into understandable bites.
To wit: what the hell is “reconciliation” that you’ve probably heard so much about? And I don’t mean the false calls for “unity” and “bi-partisanship” (more on that in a new post). I mean the budget process term “reconciliation”.
Why is this important to know? Because it is highly likely that anything of significance in the next two to four years (and beyond) that has to do with spending government money on anything one can call “progressive”, or, hell, even mildly “liberal”/rationale, will need to pass the Senate using “reconciliation”—that’s how the Affordable Care Act became law.
While both Houses of Congress have to pass any budget bill, “reconciliation” is far more crucial in the Senate: reconciliation only needs a majority vote, and cannot be blocked by a filibuster that can only be broken with 60 votes in support of a measure (i.e., a super-majority vote that would require that stomach-turning term “bi-partisanship”).
And because Bernie Sanders is now the chair of the Senate Budget Committee it is almost certainly a tool he will use to get big stimulus and funding for progressive policy to a vote (in fact, he has written publicly that he intends on doing just that). And, beware, there are limitations on the reconciliation gambit we all have to be aware of so people aren’t freaking out (okay, so, people will freak out anyway).
OK, so how does it work? (and hold those hard political questions for a moment): let’s say Joe Biden proposes a $2 trillion stimulus package which includes a whole lot of spending for more relief and, specifically, big money for states and localities to plug budget holes—that last bit (state and local aid) was something Republicans absolutely opposed (because…well, stupidity and ideology). Republicans would surely block such a bill, using the legislative filibuster if it was brought to the floor as a “normal” piece of legislation—another reason the filibuster should be done away with (the Republicans already nuked the filibuster for judicial nominations…which is how you have Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Coney Barrett on the Court).
How does this all start? The passage of a budget resolution, which can lead to a budget reconciliation bill, typically begins in the House and Senate budget committees. The budget resolution lays out the parameters of the spending proposals. It needs to pass both chambers of Congress with a majority vote, so, with such narrow margins in both chambers, you need agreement from the whole Democrat caucus on the basic parameters of the budget reconciliation bill.
Once that bills passes, it sets the parameters for each committee and the relevant appropriation committees—say, the one on Transportation, or Health and Human Services—on what its budget should look like.
Then, that whole kit-and-caboodle gets rolled into a single bill that is introduced on to the floor.
Now, for the PROBLEMS! Let’s divide those into technical and political:
THE TECHNICAL!
Investment spending: Note, as much as possible, I try to avoid using the word “deficit” because it has today, alas, an unfortunate and wholly unneeded negative meaning (I wrote a whole book—updated 2013 version—with the subtle title “It’s Not Raining, We’re Getting Peed On” about the deficit myth). We are INVESTING money in the country.
The limitation on investment spending in a reconciliation bill is that it cannot increase the (sometimes the word has to be used…) deficit for the years beyond the budget window, which is typically 10 years. So, Congress could increase infrastructure spending for the next 10 years, but would have to stop the new spending (or pay for the beyond-ten-year-window with tax increases or spending cuts so it’s deficit neutral) after the 10 years. In practical terms, this doesn’t have to be a barrier at all because once something is in place for ten years, it has a chance to stick around. It’s a dumb rule but it is what it is.
Reconciliation can’t be the dance partner for each musical number: In fact, it’s limited to ONCE A YEAR—the three elements of a budget bill (spending, revenue and the debt limit) could be taken up in three distinct bills but they would all, then, be almost certainly combined in a final bill (there is, as an aside, some thinking that in theory there could be more than one reconciliation bill but let’s just not complicate the picture today). Actually, because there was no budget resolution passed for 2021, that means Congress could do two in 2021 (the fiscal year 2021 is Oct. 1 2020 – Sept. 30 2021) and one next year.
Don’t Forget The House! As I hinted earlier, the House also has to pass a budget resolution/the budget reconciliation bill, but the main point here is to get around the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. The House already has majority vote rule/no filibuster, so the only real rub there is to make sure the House bill matches the Senate bill.
What Trouble Can Be Made For The Bill? So, I’ll try to streamline this a bit. Yes, in the Senate, amendments can be considered for a reconciliation bill—it’s usually done in a “vote-a-rama” that goes on for hours and hours into the late hours (the fact that I’ve watched this shows you the sad state of my non-Netflix viewing practices and, perhaps, social life). The House majority has a little more power to limit amendments: each bill comes with a rule that structures the debate on the bill and it typically limits the time and number of amendments.
Byrd Reaches From The Grave: ICYM Him… for the younger set: Robert Byrd was the long-time senior Democratic senator from West Virginia (and, it must be mentioned, a once-upon-a-time Ku Klux Klan member because, yup, Democrats had plenty segregationists in the ranks from the South in the old days) who exerted a fair amount of power from his perch on the Appropriations Committee. From that came the Byrd Rule when it comes to reconciliation bills:
You can’t fuck with Social Security benefits;
You can’t try to stick something in the bill during your committee’s consideration if it’s not part of the committee you are on (that’s your basic turf war rearing its head… “don’t you dare tell me what I should do in my little kingdom”);
It can’t raise the deficit beyond the ten-year period of the act;
It somehow increases spending or reduces revenues if the committee hasn’t met its own target set out in the budget resolution
How is the Byrd Rule enforced? Any Senator can object to a provision—raise “a point of order”—and if it is sustained (by a 2/3 vote), the specific provision is deleted. The advantage here: picking and choosing provisions for deletion does not stop the whole bill.
THE POLITICS!
The Fifth Columnists: Alas, with very narrow Democratic majorities in both Houses, it will be a tight squeeze. I was on a UK radio program on Inauguration Day and the host asked me roughly “How will Biden get progressives on his side in the budget fights?”
Wrong question! Sure, progressives want much bigger spending—including passing Medicare For All (more on M4All in a moment)—but, taking Bernie’s rhetorical lead, progressives will push as hard as possible but will accept the much larger, already-outlined, Biden short-term relief/COVID/infrastructure spending as a “down payment.”
The real problem will be with people like Joe Manchin, who is a Fifth Columnist and wanna-be Republican in his economic outlook. Manchin and a small group of “deficit” pearl-clutchers will try to throw sand in the gears when it comes to big-time, huge spending…which, we need to tell anyone who will listen, is dumb economics: even Janet Yellin, the soon-to-be- Treasury Secretary and former chair of the Federal Reserve Board (and, thus, not a democratic socialist), says we need MASSIVE spending immediately, deficits-be-damned, especially with interest rates at rock bottom lows.
Even in the House, you’ve got useless, corporate mouthpieces like Kurt Schrader (“D”-Oregon…the “D” in quotes is intentional) who said he opposes giving people one-time $2,000 relief checks because it’s too much to spend (remember, $2K in itself is a bad compromise compared to what yours truly, and many others, have argued for—$2K EVERY MONTH as long as the economic collapse endures). So, I would not assume the House is an entirely easy lift compared to the Senate.
A Technical AND Political Reality Check for Progressives: Sanders, in the above linked-to piece, suggests—and others have encouraged the view—that a reconciliation bill is a way to also roll in things like enacting Medicare For All or raising the minimum wage to $15-an-hour. I am all for trying—but, IMHO, that tactic should be done principally for the political education and organizing value because it’s unlikely to succeed.
Remember above the Byrd Rule—if Bernie, or someone else, proposes to include the hiking of the minimum wage in a reconciliation bill, and assuming it gets approved in the Budget Committee (not a foregone conclusion), it’s very likely that a Republican or Fifth-Columnist Joe Manchin will raise a point of order arguing that raising the minimum wage has nothing to do with spending and revenue and is not germane. There is a counter argument to that, of course (for example, here).
By the same token, Medicare for All is not going to sniff passage under reconciliation at the very least because of Fifth Columnist Joe Manchin, even though enacting M4All is, IMHO, 100 percent relevant to spending and revenue for the government.
People can whine all they want about the realities of the process but that’s the truth. Our job is to continue to build the power to make either the $15-an-hour minimum wage hike or M4All happen (and there’s been a lot of great success on the minimum wage through state ballot initiatives)—not bang on Bernie Sanders when he either can’t pass it or decides not to push it—though he certainly sees the wisdom of making a go of it.
This will be an adult test for progressives: which of the people are in this for the long haul, understand the political challenges and also are willing to work to shift the political calculation VERSUS who are the useless people who just retreat to social media to complain?
SHORT TAKES:
Why Chuck Schumer would even consider a power-sharing deal with Republicans is totally beyond me—and underscores how weak he is as a leader. Just yesterday, McConnell stood on the Senate floor and, in his usual amoral rhetorical re-writing of history, pretended like…he hadn’t blown up the whole Senate and ignored institutional rules in his insatiable thirst for more power. And you can absolutely bet if the tables were reversed, McConnell wouldn’t care a wit if there was a 50-50 Senate and his party’s vice president was in the Senate chair to break ties. If it was up to me, I’d write the Senate rules on a piece of paper, including getting rid of the legislative filibuster, label it “Merrick Garland Says Hi” and shove it down McConnell’s throat with my middle finger.
The significance of the firing of National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Peter Robb, a Trump appointee, is hopeful way beyond this one act: Does anyone think #JoeBiden thought his list of first-day actions would be, “Climate change, stop the wall, remove the racist Muslim travel ban and oh, yeah, fire PeterRobb?”. I don’t mean that has a criticism of Biden: He probably didn’t even know the guy existed. It’s more a hopeful signal of labor’s renewed influence inside the Executive Branch. We will see what that means but the Labor Department appointments at the below-Secretary level that I have seen have been pretty damn good so far (some folks I know personally), especially great folks to run the Occupational Safety and Health Administration so, you know, workers don’t die from COVID at work because employers don’t give a shit.
There’s more money in peoples’ pockets who have a job: A more enduring piece of news for a 2021 positive start, courtesy of the National Employment Law Project: “A total of 74, cities, counties, and states will raise their minimum wages in 2021, many to $15 per hour or more. These raises are a combination of new laws adopted in 2020, scheduled step increases, and cost-of-living adjustments. This is the highest number of jurisdictions raising pay since the Fight for $15 and a union began in November 2012, demonstrating the continued strength of the movement.”
I doubt I can be original at this point so, no, I won’t post any Bernie Mittens memes.
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