By Marshall Griffin, St. Louis Public Radio
Jefferson City, Mo. – Missouri's senior U.S. Senator is blasting the chamber's top Democrat.
Republican Kit Bond says today's announcement by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nevada) that he'll use a procedure known as reconciliation to force a simple majority vote on health care is outrageous.
"And I think that Senator Reid's effort, along with that of the Speaker (Nancy Pelosi) and the President, is to tell the people of America, 'We know what's best for you, and we don't care what you think'...that's very simply it," Bond said.
Bond made that comment during a visit to Jefferson City this afternoon. Republican senators have been blocking a vote on President Obama's health care overhaul.
Missouri's Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill was not available for comment, but her office provided the following written response:
"I think it would depend on what's in the reconciliation package. Reconciliation has been used many times. It was used for the Contract with America, back in the 90's. It was used for the Bush tax cuts in the last presidential cycle, so really the majority in almost every decade has used reconciliation a number of different times. I don't think reconciliation in itself is the problem. What's really going to matter is what's in it."