A Way to Bypass Filibuster?

clipped from thehill.com President Obama’s budget director said the White House would consider using a Senate procedural tactic so that only 50 votes would be rquired to pass major healthcare and energy reforms. Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the administration would prefer not to use the budget reconciliation process to push through its package. But he added: "We have to keep everything on the table. We want to get these.... important things done this year." Orszag called healthcare in particular "the key to our fiscal future." Because they can not be filibustered, budget reconciliations only require 50 votes to pass the Senate. Democrats hold strong majorities in Congress, but still come up short of the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to end debate, which makes it easier for Republicans to block legislation. House rules in comparison make it harder for the minority party to stop bills.

while I'd rather not let this genie out of the bottle, the GOP has almost literally been filibustering everything. Last year, they'd broken the previous record of bills filibustered -- 62 -- by June. Being such obstructionists, the Republicans are practically begging for drastic Democratic action designed to cut them out of the loop.

However, the report tells us, "[U]sing budget reconciliation to pass policy proposals is controversial, even among some Democrats who believe doing so strains Senate rules and tradition." I suppose this means things could go either way.

At least this solution doesn't require a change in senate rules, which Democrats would eventually have to work under as a minority at some point.