Budget Reconciliation is back on the menu!

[Teaser]

YEE-HAH!

Senate Democrats are increasingly receptive to using a controversial budget shortcut to ease passage of health-care reform legislation, a shift in stance encouraged by the White House but denounced by Republicans, who say the maneuver is an unfair partisan trick.

The procedure, known as reconciliation, is included in the House's budget blueprint but is not in the Senate version. Both resolutions are expected to win easy passage this week and will be combined into a single fiscal framework later this month.

The House reconciliation language would allow lawmakers to bundle into a single bill all facets of health-care reform, combining the coverage initiatives that President Obama has advocated with the tax increases and spending cuts needed to offset the program's high costs. The rule also would protect the legislation from a Republican filibuster, allowing what is perhaps the most ambitious domestic policy bill Congress has considered in years to pass the Senate with 51 votes.

Senate Democratic leaders said they would continue to seek bipartisan support as health-care legislation advances in the months ahead, treating reconciliation as a fallback option, to be exercised if Republican support does not materialize. "We're going to decide whether it should be used," said Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "I don't know why everybody's up in arms."

maybe it's a threat to leverage some R support, maybe it's for real, either way, good news.