Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., center, accompanied by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., left, and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., right,  speaks to reporters following a weekly Republican policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 19, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Republicans in the U.S. Senate will spend the next couple weeks defending the party’s “big beautiful bill” against Democratic criticisms and attempting to pass a final version that can win 51 votes.

Reconciliation, the name for the process under which the massive bill is being considered, comes with a lot of rules in the Senate, including that every proposal in the bill addresses federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit. And language addressing the first two cannot be deemed “merely incidental,” or it gets kicked to the curb.

Reconciliation is also favorable for the party in power, in this case Republicans, since the bill is not subject to the legislative filibuster. That means the GOP will need no more than a simple majority for passage.

As you watch and read about Senate action during the coming weeks, here are the answers to five questions about reconciliation and other ways in which Congress sets a budget and allocates taxpayer money:

Q: Where does reconciliation fit in with everything else that’s happening, like the president’s budget request, the budget resolution Congress approved earlier this year, the appropriations bills and rescissions?

A: Yeah, they really don’t make this easy.

The president’s budget request is a proposal that serves as the starting point for lawmakers’ work on a variety of fronts, including the annual appropriations bills. Nothing in the president’s budget request becomes real unless Congress takes action.

Congress’ budget resolution is separate from that request. It is a tax and spending blueprint that lawmakers are supposed to use to plan the country’s financial future for the next decade.

It is not a bill and cannot become law, but when the House and Senate adopt a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions it unlocks the process Republicans are now using to pass their “big beautiful bill” — reconciliation.

Reconciliation bills move through Congress similar to how a regular bill becomes a law. However, in the Senate, the political party using the process must defend its work to the parliamentarian, who ensures the legislation complies with the Byrd rule, which is actually a law.

In a process separate from this are the dozen annual appropriations bills, which is how Congress, with its power of the purse, funds the departments, agencies and programs that most people picture when they think about the federal government.

Those bills account for about one-third of federal spending. The other two-thirds comes from mandatory programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security that lawmakers designed to run outside of the annual appropriations process.

Congress is supposed to approve the appropriations bills by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, but lawmakers rarely complete the work before their deadline and typically have to use a stopgap spending bill to give themselves more time to negotiate full-year government funding bills.

This is why there could still be a partial government shutdown later this year, even though Congress has already adopted a budget resolution and will likely pass a budget reconciliation package in the months ahead.

Yet another process related to government spending is a rescissions request, which Trump sent to Capitol Hill earlier this month. It asks lawmakers to claw back funding approved in an earlier appropriations bill.

Just making the request allows the White House budget office to freeze funding for 45 days while the House and Senate debate the proposal. Senate approval of a rescissions bill is not subject to the chamber’s 60-vote legislative filibuster, so Democratic opposition won’t stop it from becoming a reality if the vast majority of GOP senators vote to cut the previously approved spending.

Q: What are the rules for budget reconciliation bills?

A: Again, remember that in general, this type of legislation must address revenue, spending, or the debt limit. Neither political party can use the process to change policies unless they have a significant impact on federal coffers.

For example, Democrats had to remove a provision that would have raised the federal minimum wage from a reconciliation bill they passed during the Biden administration because the parliamentarian ruled it was “merely incidental.”

Q: Why didn’t the bill have to go through all these extra steps in the House?

A: Congress established the reconciliation process in a 1974 budget act and passed its first reconciliation bill in 1980. But it wasn’t until 1985 and 1986 that the Senate put extra guardrails in place.

The Byrd rule got its name from West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd, who argued that the reconciliation process needed to be more focused on budgetary issues. The Byrd rule evolved a bit over the years before being made a statute in 1990.

The Byrd rule requires each provision to change revenue or spending in a way not deemed “merely incidental.” Also, committees that receive reconciliation instructions in the budget resolution can only write bills within their jurisdiction and those committees must work within their reconciliation instructions’ fiscal targets.

In addition, proposals cannot increase the deficit outside the 10-year budget window and the package cannot change Social Security.

Q: What is a vote-a-rama?

A: Senate floor debate on a reconciliation package is much different than in the House, where GOP leaders were able to block any amendment debate.

The Senate is required to hold floor votes on reconciliation amendments and this usually leads to a vote-a-rama, where lawmakers debate dozens of amendments overnight and sometimes well after sunrise.

Democrats are likely to focus their amendments on proposals in the reconciliation bill that at least four GOP senators do not support, since that’s the minimum number Democrats would need for any of their amendments to be adopted. Republicans control the chamber with 53 votes and a tie-breaking vote from Vice President J.D. Vance.

GOP senators are likely to call for votes on their own amendments, though typically leaders try to work out many of the final details before the bill comes to the floor, to avoid potentially divisive votes.

Q: How often does Congress use this process to approve legislation?

A: Congress has approved 27 reconciliation bills since 1980, with 23 of those becoming law. Former President Bill Clinton vetoed three and former President Barack Obama vetoed one, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

During the last decade, Congress approved three reconciliation bills — Republicans’ 2017 tax law; a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package Democrats passed in 2021; and Democrats’ signature climate change, health care and tax package, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, in 2022.

If you’re interested in reading more about budget reconciliation, here is another explainer from earlier this year. 

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, U.S. President Donald Trump, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Education Secretary Linda McMahon attend an event for the Make America Healthy Again Commission report in the East Room of the White House on May 22, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration released significantly more detail about its budget request Friday evening, giving Congress the information it needs for lawmakers to draft the annual government funding bills.

The 1,224-page document sheds light on where exactly President Donald Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought want lawmakers to cut federal spending during the upcoming fiscal year.

The Office of Management and Budget released a “skinny” version of the annual proposal in early May, requesting lawmakers cut domestic spending by $163 billion and keep funding for defense programs flat in the dozen annual appropriations bills.

While the documents in that request provided some insight into how Trump wants to reshape the size and scope of about $1.7 trillion in discretionary funding, which is spending that Congress directs, they didn’t include the level of detail that the Appropriations committees need to begin their work.

The appendix document released Friday should aid in that, though it does not represent a full budget request. That type of proposal would include the White House’s goals for mandatory programs, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which make up about two-thirds of federal spending. Such spending is required by law and is not subject to annual appropriations.

A full budget request also typically includes tax policy proposals, though with Republicans in Congress already working to enact an extension of the 2017 GOP tax law in the “big, beautiful bill,” those sections would likely be of little use to lawmakers at this point.

Work on spending bills launching

The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to release and debate its 12 government funding bills throughout June, before voting to send those measures to the floor.

Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., will likely include funding levels and policy closely aligned with the White House request, since legislation in that chamber can pass a floor vote with a simple majority

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, has a more challenging task, since regular bills in that chamber require bipartisanship to get past the 60-vote legislative filibuster. Republicans control the Senate with 53 members.

In general, that means the Senate panel’s bills tend to look much more like the final version that becomes law than the House bills, though not always. 

Both chambers are supposed to reach a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on the dozen bills before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1, but that rarely happens.

Congress is much more likely to use a stopgap spending bill until mid-December to give members more time to negotiate funding levels and policies on thousands of government programs.

The House and Senate were unable to reach agreement for this fiscal year, and instead leaned on a series of three continuing resolutions to keep the government up and running.

Partial shutdown could loom again

Tensions over the proposed funding cuts in Trump’s first budget request of his second term could reach a boiling point if Cole, Collins, House ranking member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Senate ranking member Patty Murray cannot broker an agreement before their deadline.

Failure to enact some sort of government funding legislation — either the dozen full-year bills, or a stopgap spending measure — would lead to a partial government shutdown. 

Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement released Friday evening that it was “telling that President Trump has chosen to release his budget on a Friday night with no fanfare whatsoever.”

“This is a draconian proposal to hurt working people and our economy, and it is dead on arrival in Congress as long as I have anything to say about it,” Murray wrote. “But this is just another reminder we need Republicans to join us to reject these reckless cuts, focus on the investments we actually need to make in our communities and security, and to finally force Trump to follow the law and end his devastating funding freeze.”

DeLauro wrote in a statement that the “government envisioned by President Trump only serves billionaires and the biggest corporations and would do nothing to lower the cost of living.”

“This is not a complete budget,” she wrote. “We are supposed to start putting together the funding bills for 2026 next week. If, as expected, House Republicans follow what President Trump has proposed so far, it is not a serious effort to deliver for the American people.”