You know how when we're talking about rules reform, we're always wondering whether it might come back to bite Democrats? About whether it's something they'll eventually be sorry about?
Well, it's always worth considering, of course. But then again, it's always something that can be changed back, too:
In 2007, just weeks after Republicans lost control of the House and Senate and six years after the first passel of Bush tax cuts were signed into law, Democrats made a key change to the budget rules to prevent that episode from repeating itself.
Republicans had used the budget reconciliation process -- immune from a filibuster -- to pass the cuts and explode the deficit: two things the reconciliation process was never meant to allow. To get away with it, Republicans were forced to include a 10-year sunset in package -- planting the seeds for the tax cut fight we just saw on Capitol Hill. After Dems wrested control of Congress, they banned the reconciliation loopholes used by the GOP altogether.
But as they return to power in the House of Representatives, Republicans are taking steps to unravel those changes.
Yes, in 2001 and 2003, Republicans used the reconciliation process to pass the ruinous tax cuts... that were just renewed. Yes, reconciliation was never supposed to be used for that purpose. Yes, the 2003 package even had the special distinction of having been passed only thanks to then-Vice President Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote. (Try to square that in your mind with the Republicans calling Democratic use of reconciliation a "nuclear option.") Yes, Democrats changed the rules in 2007 so that this wouldn't happen again. Yes, that rule (among other things) just recently prevented Democrats from using reconciliation to pass tax cut extensions limited to just middle class.
And yes, Republicans are trying to change them right back so that they can do whatever they want.
Now, granted, this is a change taking place in the House and not the Senate, and it's really only in the Senate where rules like this pose a serious obstacle, since the House can waive pretty much any restriction it wants to so long as it can muster a majority for it. But the principle is an important one: Republicans don't care what you think the rules are, they only care what they think they are, whether the results are consistent or not. Everything the government wants to do has to be paid for because of the growing federal deficit. Except taxes, of course. At least, tax cuts that Republicans feel like passing at any particular moment. Not so much the case when the cut in question might be credited to Democrats.
But, back to the point. Rules, to Republicans, are largely pointless when they get in their way. And should Republicans in the Senate succeed in regaining the majority, they'll surely attempt to make the same kind of change they're setting their sights on in the House. In fact, there's little reason to expect them to wait to win the majority before they try this one, though the odds of prevailing would surely be somewhat higher if they do.
There's no direct analog to the question of filibuster reform, of course. You'd have to infer that the House Republican willingness to change a pretty common sense reconciliation rule, taken together with the willingness of Congressional Republicans in general to insist that tax cuts don't need to be paid for, to leap to the conclusion that Senate Republicans would also seek to change this rule. And then from there to the conclusion that there are probably other inconvenient rules that a future Democratic minority might seek to use to hamstring Republican attempts to force their agenda through without a so-called "filibuster proof majority," like, say, the filibuster rules.
But -- and maybe it's just me -- I think it's pretty easy to imagine.