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.
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