Thread by @StevenTDennis

Kyrsten Sinema’s op-ed seems to forget that Medicare, Medicaid and other spending programs can be completely eliminated with 50+VP via budget reconciliation washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

Republicans tried to turn the ACA Medicaid expansion into a kind of block grant in 2017 via reconciliation. You can defund Planned Parenthood programs in reconciliation. You can set the Medicare age to 100. You can nix food stamps etc.

The ACA itself had a massive reconciliation sidecar that included a massive federal takeover of student loans and a new long-term care program.

One thing you can’t do under current law via reconciliation is cut/alter Social Security. Nor could you, say, pass a 20-week abortion ban, which most Democrats successfully filibustered when Rs were in the majority.

It’s true Ds filibustered police reforms and COVID relief last year. The first yielded nothing/the second yielded hundreds of billions more spending on all sorts of things.

The main reason why Medicaid hasn’t been turned into a block grant & Medicare hasn’t been cut etc is because Republicans *did not have 51 votes to do so*, not because of the 60-vote rule.

One area where ending the 60-vote rule would really potentially cause big changes/swings is on the annual regular appropriations bills. But still hard to get 218+50+VP+WH.

Could point anyone to the multi-trillion-dollar differences between the 2016 budget blueprint produced by the House GOP and the policies the GOP Congress enacted in 2017/2018.

Getting votes when you are shooting with real bullets and not messaging bills is *hard.*

One interesting issue here for Sinema: The Equality Act. Odds of getting to 60 votes as-is are low. But if it does eventually pass with 60, you could argue it would be far more permanent because repeal/amendment would need 60 too…

McConnell warned of a GOP policy paradise next time they have majority if Ds Nuke:

https://twitter.com/StevenTDennis/status/1371862556931977225

McConnell didn’t mention cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security though he has previously said those programs need to be curbed to shrink the deficit. Said Rs won’t do it on their own because they are too popular.

I covered the GOP’s 2005/6 Deficit Reduction Act, which included smallish Medicare/Medicaid trims. Dick Cheney cast the tie-breaking vote because of course it was a reconciliation bill, which isn’t subject to the 60-vote rule.
senate.gov/legislative/LI…