@gorillapaws What I find most absurd is that all I did was point out that you were mistaken about what the Senate parliamentarian said, and you came back with this rant about wanting to know who she’s sleeping with. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since your main strategy in these discussions seems to be “misrepresent what someone said and then change the subject.”
“Most of the party wants an unelected person to essentially decide what laws can/can’t be passed without any transparency?”
See? You know I didn’t say that, but you just couldn’t help yourself. Maybe I should ask if you support systematically removing all checks and balances on partisan power grabs in favor of government by cronyism. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s just as (in)accurate an interpretation of your position as your statement is of mine.
Does the Senate parliamentarian hold significant procedural power? Yes. So do judges and other (often unelected) people who act as checks on those holding elected office. But unlike judges, a parliamentarian’s ruling is non-binding. The Senate parliamentarian offers advice and recommendations that hold a lot of institutional sway, but they can be overruled and ignored.
“As for the Byrd Rule, what provisions of the Byrd Rule qualifies either of those two examples as ‘extraneous?’”
According to the MacDonough, both violate the provision that no element of a reconciliation bill can “produce changes in outlays or revenue which are merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision.” A lot of things cost money or have implications for the budget, but that alone doesn’t qualify those things for passage via reconciliation.
This is by far the most controversial provision of the Byrd rule, and you are free to disagree with MacDonough’s ruling all you want. But you really can’t expect to go unchallenged when you misrepresent what the ruling was.