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Republicans have opposed it when used oftentimes by bill clinton. this is a political battle, not a question of fairness of what's right or what's wrong. >> reporter: so now on health care reform, republicans are arguing it's not right to use reconciliation to bypass their party on such monumental legislation, but back in 2005, when the shoe was on the other foot, then the republicans had the majority and nancy pelosi at the time the house minority leader ardently argued against using reconciliation, saying the republican majority was trying to, quote, ram legislation through in such a secreti...

What you'll see in a few minutes, he waved an obscene finger gesture at a producer for abc news. temperatures are flaring on what's -- with a real-world effect. construction workers started the morning on the job, rebuilding a bridge outside washington, but as the clock ticked towards noon, workers on this $36 million project were told to stop and leave. the site locked up. >> told everybody to go home at 12:00, told everybody to go home. >> reporter: the department of transportation says it fulloed 2,000 workers here and around the country, because congress failed to pass legislation to exten...

Social security benefits. and while reconciliation is generally considered to be a procedural tactic only used as a last option, actually some controversial and major legislation have passed used -- take a look at this. the 1996 overhaul, medicare advantage insurance policies, and the cobra insurance program. wolf? >> it's got a long history. republicans, as you say, have used it more than democrats. >> it's amazing, when you take a look, you can go back in time and see the debate. these two sides are in the exact opposite position where you had republicans actually being pushing for reconcili...

Mission for the party if they jam this through. >> it could turn out to be a victory for the democrats if the american public believe they are jamming it through. they've seen the debate, they don't like the health care bill particularly, so they may not like this process. i think the larger question, which david really alluded to, is, should you pass something that affects one sixth of the american economy with just a majority vote? you look back at social security, passed the senate 77-6. look back at medicare, passed the senate 70-24. those were clearly different times, different sensibilit...