Mike Huckabee Lies Too
Given how little he evidently knows about the congressional budget process, it's a very good thing that former GOP Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee didn't run successfully for president and has opted instead for a life on Fox.
Huckabee, in a political ad that I've seen frequently in my swing state, says that health care reform was "rammed" through Congress in 2010. Here's the video:
By "rammed" Huckabee is referring to the use of reconciliation, the part of the congressional budget process that was created when the Congressional Budget Act was enacted in 1974.
For the record...and because Huckabee apparently didn't know, didn't want to remember, or simply refused to admit..the CBA was approved by overwhelming bi-partisan majorities in the House and Senate so and he is complaining about a procedure that his own political party helped create.
More important...reconciliation doesn't allow legislation to be "rammed" through; anything approved using reconciliation requires that a majority of the Senate vote for it.
Huckabee is complaining because reconciliation made it impossible for Senate Republicans to use the Democrats-must-always-have-a-super majority-to-get-anything-done strategy that it has so successful used to block other legislation.
What makes Huckabee's statement even worse is that, as Politifact.com confirmed in 2010, the GOP used that very same reconciliation process in 2001 and 2003 to enact the Bush tax cuts.
Saying that health care reform was "rammed" through is a lie. The GOP simply didn't have the votes to stop it.
You Shall Not Bear False Witness
Obviously Paul Ryan has no reason to be truthful about anything, including his time in the one marathon he ran 20 years ago, but shouldn't a man of the cloth like Huck make at least some effort to the truth?
After all, it was the same Huck who said: "Politics are totally directed by worldview. That's why when people say, 'We ought to separate politics from religion,' I say to separate the two is absolutely impossible".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Huckabee
Apparently "absolutely impossible" is a relative standard for Huck
In fact, the PPACA wasn't even passed under reconciliation.
"On December 23, 2009, the Senate voted 60–39 to end debate on the bill, eliminating the possibility of a filibuster by opponents. The bill then passed by a vote of 60–39 on December 24, with all Democrats and two Independents voting for, all but one Republican voting against and one senator (Jim Bunning, R-Ky.) not voting."
This was during the approximately 80-day period between when Al Franken was finally sworn in, and Ted Kennedy passed. You may remember a kerfluffle when Scott Brown won the special election, and most everyone thought Health Care reform was 'dead'.
All that happened was that House Democrats had to come to terms with passing the Senate version of the bill without further amendments. But in no way was the bill "rammed through", it was passed on partisan lines by the party that brought the American Public such hits as "Social Security", "Civil Rights" and "Medicare".
True - PPACA itself was not
True - PPACA itself was not passed under reconciliation, only the companion bill that changed minor, budget-related details to the bill was passed under reconciliation.
It's just a meaningless phrase
Since nothing ever passes congress without a majority, it's kind of a meaningless phrase that can be attached to anything the speaker opposes, when he wants to convey that "everyone" (i.e., my team) is against the law.
The only time in recent memory that I can recall anything really being "rammed through" congress was the Medicare Part D bill where Hastert & DeLay pushed the measure through on procedures that violated House rules, with help from a Bush administration that forbade medicare's chief actuary from testifying as to its true expected cost.
But by & large the phrase is just for coloring, and not worth worrying about.