Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff Lauren boglebam here. Passing new legislation in the US can be well difficult, to say the least, and when there's a Congress that's all but deadlocked because of razor thin majorities in the House and Senate, that makes passing big budget legislation even more problematic. That's where reconciliation comes
into the picture. Budget reconciliation is a way for Congress to pass major funding bills, which are notoriously difficult to pass, especially when there is a very evenly divided Senate. It was created by the Congressional Budget Act of four as a way to quickly advance these tax and spending bills.
With reconciliation, the party in control of Congress can pass funding legislation in the Senate, things like taxes, spending, and debt limits, with a simple majority that is either vote or fifty votes and the Vice president's tie breaking vote without the threat of a filibuster. It takes sixty votes
to defeat a filibuster. The Congressional Budget Act also limits Senate debate on the bill to twenty hours and limits debate on the compromises between the two houses to ten hours, which helps the Senate expedite and pass reconciliation bills much faster. And to start the process, Congress agrees on a budget
resolution that includes a reconciliation directive four specified committees. These directives instruct the committees on how much to increase or decrease spending in revenue or how to limit the debt ceiling. It also provides a deadline for completion. A Congress doesn't tell the committees how to hit the reconciliation target, just
to hit it. Once the various committees complete their tasks, the House and Senate budget committees combine the recommendations into a single omnibus bill, the Reconciliation Bill, and then the House and Senate vote. Both must obtain a majority to pass the legislation. Reconciliation bills can include spending changes two items, such as Medicare, Medicaid, federal civilian and military retirement benefits, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program a SNAP formerly known as
food stamps, and farm programs. The Social Security is untouchable. The reconciliation rule allows bills that raise the deficit, but only for ten years. The Trump tax cuts were passed fire reconciliation, though the Senate allowed some of the tax cuts to expire so the bill wouldn't increase the federal
deficit past that ten year window. In addition, the Bird Rule, named for the late Senator Robert Byrd, who served as the Democratic Senator for West Virginia for fifty one years, is intended to keep extraneous policies from being included in budget reconciliation, and basically it keeps senators from sneaking non budgetary items into reconciliation. It's up to the Senate parliamentarian to decide what is and isn't extraneous to the reconciliation.
Important to note, reconciliation can only be used once perfect school year, and only to change or reconcile laws related to taxes and spending. Since reconciliation was first introduced in the Congressional Budget Act of nineteen seventy four, it's been
used twenty one times. Some of its notable uses were the Trump tax cuts in seventeen, the Bush tax cuts in two thousand one and two thousand three, Pluton's welfare program in ninet and major deficit reduction bills in the nineteen eighties and nineties, the reconciliation process was also used to pass parts of the Affordable Care Act or a c A. In and in one, reconciliation was used to pass President Joe Biden's one point nine trillion dollar COVID
nineteen relief package. Today's episode is based on the article Reconciliation and Bass tracks massive budget bills through Congress on how stuff works dot Com. Written by Patty rasmusin brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio in partnership with how stuff works dot Com and is produced by Tyler Clay. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.