Senate should strive for consensus, not partisanship
The Senate is on the verge of passing the largest budget in American history, $3.5 trillion, with the votes of only Democratic senators.
Among the provisions likely to be included are to:
• lower the eligibility age for Medicare while expanding its benefits.
• provide free community college tuition.
• extend higher Medicaid benefits in states that opted out of those higher levels under the Affordable Care Act (“ACA” or “Obamacare”).
• offer free pre-kindergarten and free school meals for all, regardless of income.
• repeal the 1947 “right-towork” provisions of federal labor law, so that non-union members could be compelled to pay fees to unions,
• require employers to provide free family and medical leave.
• enact many other policy priorities of both the traditional and far-left wings of the Democratic Party.
• increase taxes on corporations and on individuals making more than $400,000 to pay for the new spending.
The Senate rules allow any provision that affects spending or revenue to be included in budget reconciliation bills, and thus avoid a Republican filibuster.
There is an exception: the “Byrd Rule,” named for former Democratic Rules Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, for “measures that produce a budgetary effect that is merely incidental to the non-budgetary policy change.”
That exception was applied last February to exclude an increase in the federal minimum wage from the 2021 fiscal year budget package.
A higher minimum wage might have an effect on tax revenue (more tax from individual employees with higher wages, less tax from those employees who would lose their jobs, less tax from employers whose profits would be lowered), but its real import was not budgetary.
It is likely that many of the provisions in today’s budget bill will fall before the same reasoning, assuming the Senate parliamentarian resists intense pressure from the Senate Democrats’ left wing.
Repealing right-to-work laws, for instance, has been in national Democratic Party platforms for almost 75 years. The “non-budgetary policy change” is to help unions, who uphold the Democratic Party; the budgetary impact is incidental at best.
However, there is a more fundamental problem than the Byrd Rule with legislating in this manner.
Is it wise that so many different and major policy changes be adopted with only the barest of majorities?
That is what the Democrats now have: an edge of nine out of 435 in the House, and a 5050 position in the Senate (with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie).
In July of 2017, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, voted no on the Republican bill to repeal Obamacare. The Republican Senate leadership, and President Donald Trump, were making use of budget reconciliation to allow a simple majority vote — evading the Democratic Senators’ efforts at a filibuster.
Sen. McCain’s vote was not based on his admiration for Obamacare. He stood on a different principle: That legislation with this kind of major impact should not be passed on a simple party-line vote. He held that view even though Obamacare itself had passed on a purely party-line vote. Then in the 30th of his 31 years in the Senate, McCain’s stance reflected a respect for the deliberative nature of the Senate, designed by the founders to be the more reflective of the two houses of Congress.
Senators have longer terms and (originally) were not subject to direct election. McCain was applauded by many for standing up to a purely political power play. Some who expressed admiration for his principle then are ignoring that same principle now, because the party sides have switched.
In 1965, Medicare became law by vote of 313-115 in the House, and 68-21 in the Senate. The 1964 Civil Rights Law was passed 290 to 130 in the House, and 73 to 27 in the Senate. Supreme Court nominees used to be confirmed without even taking a recorded vote.
Political majorities are fleeting in Congress. What should be permanent is a commitment to consensus.