Fox News' Henneberg falsely claimed "[r]econciliation was last used in 2001"
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SUMMARY: Molly Henneberg falsely claimed, "Reconciliation was last used in 2001 by Republicans to pass the first Bush tax cuts." In fact, Republicans used the budget reconciliation process to pass several Bush initiatives after 2001, and it was used as recently as 2007.
During the March 27 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier, correspondent Molly Henneberg falsely claimed that "[r]econciliation was last used in 2001 by Republicans to pass the first Bush tax cuts." In fact, Republicans used the budget reconciliation process to pass several major Bush initiatives after 2001, as the blog Think Progress recently noted. These initiatives include the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005. Reconciliation was used as recently as 2007, when the Democratic Congress passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act.
During her report, Henneberg described reconciliation as a "maneuver" that congressional Democrats may use "to achieve some of President Obama's more controversial budget priorities, including health-care reform and a cap-and-trade energy policy."
As Media Matters for America documented, Fox News host Sean Hannity recently made the false claim that reconciliation would allow the Obama administration to pass legislation "without any Republicans even having an opportunity to vote."
From the March 27 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier:
BRET BAIER (anchor): While several Democratic lawmakers have taken steps to trim the president's budget, others are trying to use parliamentary shortcuts to preserve some of his most ambitious initiatives. Correspondent Molly Henneberg reports.
[begin video clip]
HENNEBERG: House and Senate Democrats are holding out the possibility of using a maneuver called reconciliation to achieve some of President Obama's more controversial budget priorities, including health-care reform and a cap-and-trade energy policy. Political analysts say reconciliation makes it easier for the majority to get bills, which are attached to the budget through Congress, especially through the Senate.
J.D. FOSTER (Heritage Foundation senior fellow): Because of the reconciliation instructions, you don't have a right to filibuster. You can raise some -- offer amendments and raise objections, but, ultimately, it's going to take 51 votes to move the legislation forward, not 60.
HENNEBERG: The 60 votes that are usually needed in the Senate to stop a filibuster and pass a bill. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid [NV] has said nothing is off the table when it comes to reconciliation. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has watched many House-passed bills die in the Senate, says the future of health-care reform may depend on it.
PELOSI: I think the best prospect for that to happen is to do it under reconciliation.
HENNEBERG: Reconciliation was last used in 2001 by Republicans to pass the first Bush tax cuts, but now the GOP is furious the Democrats may use it to pass potentially sweeping energy and health-care reform.
REP. PETE HOEKSTRA (R-MI): They're going to have a major impact on the country, and to put them through a process that will not allow for a full debate is absolutely outrageous.
Well.... FoxNoise is legally allowed to LIE ... so this is not a shock.
It's often difficult to find reconciliation between the truth and FOX's news reporting, that's for sure...
Controversial proposals like healthcare reform and cap and trade?
Go f yourself.
50 million people have no health insurance and you smarmy foxies want to call making it easier for them to get insured, 'controversial.'
Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia communities are being poisoned and having their land raped by the coal industry, but cap and trade is 'controversial.'
Idiot. Pampered little, willfully ignorant Republican spokesmodel.
That's pretty much what I was about to post. The only place those things are controversial is the Republican caucus.
What is most ironic about this, is that the republican party used to have plenty of ideas of things to do, and ways to take the country. Did I agree with them? Not most of them, but they did think them out, had some facts to back them up, and tried to implement them now, all the while saying that democrats had no ideas, and totally ignoring that we did have ideas.
Ah, how the mighty have fallen.
magnolia.....im going to play devil's advocate here for a moment as to what would happen if reconciliation was used.
there will be an endless cycle of the parties switching power and using reconciliation to jame things down everyone's throats. both sides will use it and it will go on and on and on.
personally i think democrats have been too nice. i think there should have been a political bloodletting. the ancient Romans constantly brought the entire body of elected officials of the previous year up for trial nearly every single year for their actions. sometimes there were large number of those officials found guilty on various charges, though those were few and far between. usually it would be one guy who was so blatently corrupt that it couldn't be ignored.
as much as i think that possible cycle is a bad thing.......at the same time i feel that president obama needs to use it to jam things through. maybe we will get lucky and should power shift back to neo cons they may think.....hey we used reconciliation.....you guys used it, the score is even and lets move past this. thats my hope anyway. though the trend of neo cons is not so optimistic as my outlook. and they will use any and all means they can to put themselves back in power and then give us that final nudge to send our country over the cliff.
The metaphor of bloodletting reveals a violent tendency that has no place in a healthy democracy. That's a subject for another day.
Anyway. At this moment Republicans are simply too absurd in their alternatives and too dangerous in their lust for political control to grant their "ideas" legitimacy. If they want to participate in the discussion in good faith, that's fine. But if they're going keep stoking fear with claims of socialism and hypocritical attacks on growing the deficit, then they can just sit by themselves in the corner until they decide they can co-operate with the rest of the country.
I'm not so sure that bloodletting reveals anything violent as a metaphor. When I think of bloodletting, I think of:
Bloodletting (or blood-letting, in modern medicine referred to as phlebotomy) was a tremendously popular medical practice from antiquity up to the late 19th century, a time span of almost 2,000 years. ...
Although, I can see where you're coming from.
That's fine. That's a perfectly legitimate interpretation. But in his context, he was talking about Roman politics. I doubt they were bleeding bad spirits with leeches.
i was speaking more in terms of officials in rome being constantly brought to trial for their administration.
good posts, yours.
thx.
i used it as a bridge to my Roman historical comparison. im not actually condoning any such violence.
Nobody said you were condoning anything. You just reveal unarticulated assumptions of how the world works and certain patterns in your thinking. That's fine. Not necessarily healthy, but it's o.k.
The broader point is that public immolation metaphors are not as healthy for encouraging political participation as the humane alternative of honest negotiation. The modern conservative relies on enforcing obedience through punishment. It's an authoritarian view that stifles co-operation and progress.
That's all I'm saying on the subject.
point taken
Thanks, buddy. Also, I look forward to posting back and forth with you here, so I'm glad you didn't take me the wrong way.
and you as well
BTW. I'm guilty of using violent metaphors, too. If I were here to judge. I would lose.
as i stated in my example of the trial of previous high office holders in Rome were regularly brought up on various charges, i specifically said political bloodletting, meaning that any in the previous administration needs their actions looked at with the closest of scrutiny for any violations of law.
kinda like how spain is looking to go after former officials for torture.
I think that the things that you say are valid, but there is really no indication that if/when republicans take back over Congress (who knows when that will be, but I'm sure it'll happen eventually as it always does), they'll go back to their own ways of jamming things down the the throat of democrats. I don't really see anything in their agenda, or actions, over the past 20 some odd years that would indicate otherwise. The republicans like to get down, and play dirty, and we, the democrats are actually being WAY too nice to them after years of being abused at the hands of power that they held.
It's kind of like how when republicans had a majority in the Senate, on the off chance that democrats would filibuster something, all of a sudden, we were the part of the filibuster, and the democrats wouldn't let anything through, and we were obstructionists (even though the filibuster is a legal method, and even though democrats used it rarely), anytime we did, we were painted as being obstructionists. Fast forward to 2006 when democrats took back over, the republicans put anything and everything up for a cloture vote. In other words, anything moved to the floor for a vote by a democrat automatically had a filibuster attached to it. Hardly a peep out of our democrats proclaiming, rightfully so in this case, that the republicans were obstructing, well, everything, and then the republicans would get on TV, or on the internet, and proclaim how the democrats promised to do this, and or that, and we hadn't done it yet.
I'm tired of trying to place nice with others. We are in control, we won the last 2 elections, they always said elections have consequences, time to put our agenda into action, and to get it out there. Involve the republicans if we must, and we should, but overall, we won. We are in power.
Agreed. Just watching republicans push coleman to keep filing lawsuits to try to keep Franken from being seated (for years if they get the supremes to bite!) has been annoying at best. Every single time we see republicans screaming about what democrats are about to do only to learn that republicans are already doing it.
What is good for the republicans, is good for the democrats.
I find it so funny that in these times, when the democrats control things, and involve republicans a lot, they still whine and cry about it, when in the recent past, they basically cut out the democrats from anything going on in Congress time and again. Changing rules, having votes in the middle of the night and not bothering to inform the dems, and so on, and so forth.
I say, stick it to them. I can't think of anyone who deserves it more, and I just like to see Boehner throw tantrums on the floor of the House after sneaking a cigarette in the back rooms.
come on you know the answer to that question
Their hypocrisy makes me sick.
fixed news committing the Sin of Omission? that can't be true. they are "fair and balanced"
wow i couldn't say that with a straight face
The unvarinshed truth last used on Fox in 2001, I mean, err, never.
I was wondering when the Dems were gonna grow a pair and use reconciliation to tell republicans to F off.