Hollow Reconciliation Threats?

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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March 22, 2010

Hollow Reconciliation Threats?

The budget reconciliation package passed by the House last night -- which contains fixes to the health care reform package -- heads to the U.S. Senate for debate this week. That will set in motion what's expected to be a parliamentary floor battle that could last a week or more.

Senate Republicans tell ABC News "they can get the whole package of reconciliation fixes -- the fix-its that make the Senate plan palatable to House Democrats -- thrown out with a trump card procedural motion."

However, Ezra Klein notes "my sense is that there's some confusion about what happens if the parliamentarian rules against the Democrats on this or that provision. So let me be clear on this: Reconciliation isn't all or nothing. The parliamentarian isn't ruling whether you can do a reconciliation rider. He's ruling over what you can do with it. An adverse ruling is more annoying for the Democrats than it is disastrous."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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March 22, 2010