Quick take: Bernie Sanders, the minimum wage, parliamentary rules, and why I still can't respect Sanders

 OK, fine.  I'll make a quick comment about congressional procedure.  It is what I do in my real job.  Besides, I can't pass up an opportunity to note the intellectual deficiencies of one, Bernard Sanders.  I do not respect this man.

The minimum wage.  What should it be?  If anything?  There are legitimate policy debates to be had.  What is not legitimate is the use of "budget reconciliation" to raise the minimum wage.  Quick refresher.  Senate rules allow the use of "budget reconciliation" as a procedure to bypass the filibuster because reconciliation bills automatically limit the time allocated for debate.  However, the Byrd rule, named for longtime West Virginia Senator, Robert Byrd, limits the use of reconciliation to legislation that directly affects the raising and spending of federal money (the... budget), with the added requirement that no reconciliation bill can increase the deficit beyond ten years.

Budgetary bills only.  Indirect stuff doesn't count.  Why not?  Because everything indirectly affects the budget.  If you let indirect stuff count, the Byrd rule no longer restricts the process in any way.

The minimum wage is not a policy directed at taxation, nor the allocation of federal money.  Period.  Does it indirectly affect the budget?  Yes.  So does everything.  See previous comment.  That argument doesn't cut it.

The Republicans tried to use budget reconciliation for their various repeal-and-replace schemes in 2017, and the Senate parliamentarian kept calling bullshit on them for including non-budgetary provisions.  'Cuz it was bullshit.  In fact, back on The Unmutual Political Blog, I had a little thing going about it.  I wrote a series of posts portraying Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian, as a bloodthirsty barbarian warrior rampaging across the Republicans' bills for her own sadistic pleasure.  Maybe I'll bring that back.  Anyway, the point was that the Republicans were full of shit.

And Sanders is full of shit now.

Does Sanders actually believe this is how reconciliation works?  He doesn't believe anything.  He thinks he sees a way to get what he wants, and he isn't thinking beyond that.  In other words, he is doing exactly what the GOP was doing in 2017.  He is precisely as full of shit.  Whether you agree with his policy goals or not, he is precisely as full of shit.  This is not 'Nam, Bernie, there are rules.

Am I the only one who gives a shit about the rules?

Anyway, he's full of shit.  And if Sanders or the rest of the party try this, they'll get shut down just as hard by MacDonough, who has no incentive to indulge this.

Yup.  Still hate Bernie Sanders.

And... MacDonough SMASH!!!  (You know, She-Hulk was a lawyer, right?  Just sayin'...)