Reconciliation (United States Congress)

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Reconciliation is the legislative process of the United States Congress which enables the acceleration of ratification of certain budget laws on federal spending, income, and debt limits with a simple majority vote both in the House (218 votes) and the Senate (51 votes). The Senate Rules prohibit the appeal and set a limit of 20 hours on the total time for debates, motions and amendments related to reconciliation bills. The procedures are also in the House of Representatives, but the House of Representatives regularly issues rules that limit the debate and amendments, so that reconciliation has a less significant impact on the agency.

This process was created by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and was first used in 1980. The reconciliation rules allow budget-related adjustments, but larger policy changes that are not in line with the budget are limited by "Byrd Rule," an amendment named Democratic Senator Robert Byrd which was passed in 1990.

Reconciliation of bills can be forwarded to the annual federal expenditure, income, and limit of debt per topic unless Congress passes the revised budget resolution for that fiscal year (under section 304 of the Congressional Budget Act). For example, if the budget resolution reconciliation instruction affects expenditure and income, no further reconciliation laws can occur on this topic in the same fiscal year without a revised budget resolution.

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Legislative history

The reconciliation process arose from the 1974 Congressional Budget Act. Over time, it has evolved into a procedure for implementing some policy decisions and assumptions embraced in budgetary resolutions in unexpected ways when the Budget Act is in place. Under the original draft of the Budget Law, reconciliation has a fairly narrow goal: is expected to be used in conjunction with the second budget resolution adopted in the fall, is to be implemented on a fiscal year, and is directed primarily at the expenditure and income legislation acting between adoption of first and second budget resolutions.

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Historical usage

Although reconciliation was originally understood for the purpose of reducing deficits or increasing surpluses, the 1974 language of action refers only to "change" in the amount of income and expenditure, not specifically to increase or decrease. Former Senate parliamentarian Robert Dove:

[Reconciliation] was never used for that purpose. But in 1975, just a year later, a very clever committee chairman, Russell Long of Louisiana, came to the Parliamentary Office, and he continued to have problems with his tax bill due to Senate rules. People offer amendments to those he does not like. They argue at length, and he does not like it. And he sees in the Budget Act as a way to deal with those annoying little problems. And he assured the MPs at the time - I was an assistant - that the first use of reconciliation should be to protect his tax deductions.

Congress has been using procedures to enact the bill of the omnibus budget, first in 1980. Between 1980 and 2009, 17 of the 23 reconciliation bills have been signed into law by the president of the Republic (a Republican is president for 20 of 29 years). Since 1980, reconciliation has been used nine times when Republicans control both the House and the Senate, six times when the Democrats control both the House and the Senate, once when the Democrats control the Senate and the Republican Republic, and seven times when Republicans overpower the Senate and Democrats rule the House. Reconciliation has been used at least once in nominal terms for non-budget purposes (for example, see the University Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, when a Republican is a Democratic president and Congress). The 1986 Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act Act 1985 (COBRA) contains several health care provisions.

The Byrd Rule (as described below) was adopted in 1985 and amended in 1990. Its main effect is to prohibit the use of reconciliation for provisions that would increase the deficit after 10 years after the reconciliation step. The abolition of these provisions has been described as "Byrd Bath."

Congress uses reconciliation to endorse President Bill Clinton's 1993 budget (fiscal year 1994). (See Publ.L. 103-66, 107Ãƒ, Stat.Ãƒ, 312.) Clinton wanted to use reconciliation to deliver a health care plan in 1993, but Senator Robert Byrd insisted that health care plans were out of bounds for a theoretical process about the budget.

In 1997, Congress passed the 1997 Taxpayer Assistance Bill which was a reconciliation bill that reduced taxes and thereby increased the deficit, but was paired with the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (HR 2014 and HR 2015 respectively) each signed by President Clinton. In 1999, Congress for the first time used reconciliation to pass legislation that would increase the deficit without a companion bill that reduced spending (thereby ignoring the bill from 1975): Tax Refund and Tax Assistance Act 1999. This action was adopted when The government is expected to run a large surplus. It was then vetoed by President Bill Clinton. A similar situation occurred in 2000, when the Senate again used reconciliation to pass the Marriage Marriage Marriage Reconciliation Act 2000, which was also vetoed by Clinton. At that time, the use of reconciliation procedures to pass the bill was controversial.

From the 2000s to the present

During the administration of President George W. Bush, Congress used reconciliation to impose three major tax cuts. The withholding tax is set to lapse after 10 years to comply with the requirements of the Byrd Rules that prohibit legislation that increases the deficit after the time period covered by the budget resolution.

The Health and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872) is a reconciliation bill approved by the 111th United States Congress to make changes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). It was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 30, 2010. The PPACA bill itself did not pass using reconciliation but in the years following the passage of PPACA, some Republicans proposed using reconciliation to lift the main part of PPACA. In 2016, Republicans issue a bill through a reconciliation to cancel the PPACA section, although the bill was vetoed by President Barack Obama.

The American Healthcare Act 2017 is a replacement bill for PPACA meant by GOP leaders to pass using reconciliation. The bill was withdrawn before March 24, 2017, but was subsequently ratified in a vote in the House of Representatives by a vote of 217-213 on 3 May 2017. Since the 115th Senate the Republic has no 60 members of filibuster evidence in the US Senate (with only 51-member simple majority) , reconciliation will be one way to revoke the Affordable Care Act without being granted. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has stated that he believes that AHCA's reconciliation would violate the Rules of Byrd rules that require reconciliation laws to deal strictly with budgetary issues. Senator Roy Blunt, vice chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, has stated that ruling the Senate lawmakers on Byrd's Rules of Regulation will "almost guarantee that GOP health care laws will be challenged in court" because the rules are incorporated into the Self-Budget Law. Following an "assessment" by the Congressional Budget Office on May 24, 2017, the House bill is expected to reduce the deficit of $ 119 billion over a 10-year period, thereby qualifying for a simple majority vote. The rules will determine that any bill that fails to provide a large budget deficit reduction will not qualify under reconciliation and will be subject to the filibuster.

On July 25, 2017, the Senate voted to continue to debate the US House of Health Treatment legislation passed by the House in which they would use reconciliation to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act with many amendments to the AHCA One amendment - Better Reconciliation Laws - are not eligible for reconciliation under the Byrd Rule because the Congressional Budget Office does not print the law in time, and it is denied down 43 to 57 - much shorter than the 60 required votes. Two other versions of the bill are eligible for reconciliation because they include the provisions previously printed by the CBO. But they both failed to escape with a majority vote, and the last attempt was dramatically defeated with 49 to 51 votes on 27 July.

On July 29, President Donald Trump partly blamed the defeat on the Senate reconciliation rules and said on the social networking website Twitter, "The very outdated filibuster rules should go away.Reconciliation of the budget is to kill R in the Senate.Mitch M, go to 51 Voting NOW and WONDER TIME! "

On December 19-20, 2017, the House and Senate passed the prominent tax reform bill, the Withholding Tax and the Employment Act of 2017, and President Trump signed it into law on December 22. Due to Byrd rule the individual-level tax cuts and other sunset reforms in 2026. Cutting corporate tax rates and other reforms, such as diverting the United States into a territorial system, is made permanent.

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Process

To trigger a reconciliation process, Congress passed a concurrent resolution on a budget instructing one or more committees to report changes in the law affecting the budget on a specific date. If the budget instructs more than one committee, the committee sends their recommendations to their House Budget Committee, and the Budget Committee packages the recommendations into one omnibus bill. In the Senate, the reconciliation bill then only gets 20 hours of debate and limited amendment. Only one reconciliation bill can be approved in a given year.

The reconciliation bill is a law that contains changes in the recommended law in accordance with reconciliation instructions in the budget resolution. If the instructions only relate to one committee in a room, the committee reports a reconciliation bill. If the instructions pertain to more than one committee, the House Budget Committee reports an omnibus reconciliation bill, but may not make substantive changes to the recommendations of other committees.

Former Senator Judd Gregg explains the sequence of complex steps involved in reconciliation. He emphasizes the complexity of the process, especially if there is a deep partisan division:

Congress passed a budget resolution, with an April 15 deadline. No presidential signature required; sometimes the resolution is delayed or never missed.
The budget goes into both houses.
This goes to the Senate with a special rule: it can pass by the majority and can not be granted. Other laws can be granted and require 60 votes to end the filibuster.
The budget can not affect ownership like Medicare unless the budget includes "reconciliation instructions." In this case, the Byrd rule applies and the main result should be to reduce rights spending. Gregg noted, "If the budget demands more income to reduce the deficit, then reconciliation can be used to generate revenue through fees or taxes." The reconciliation instruction is a provision in the budget resolution that directs one or more committees to propose legislation that amends the existing law to bring the expenditure, tax revenue, or debt ceiling into compliance with the budget resolution. Instructions define the committees they apply, indicating the exact dollar changes to achieve, and usually provide deadlines on which the law should be reported or submitted.
After the changes are made, the Budget Committee consolidates them into one bill selected by both houses; it takes a majority in the Senate.
The last reconciliation includes government spending and going to a president who can either sign or veto; veto can be canceled by a two-thirds majority in both homes.

Byrd Rules

The Byrd Rule is a United States Senate rule that amends the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to allow the Senator during the Reconciliation Process to block legislation if it is likely to significantly increase the federal deficit beyond ten years or otherwise "foreign material" regulated in the Law of the Budget. It's named after West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd.

Reconciliation generally involves laws that change the budget deficit (or perhaps, surplus). The "Byrd Rule" (2nd AS 644) was adopted in 1985 and amended in 1990 into an outline that reconciliation provisions can and can not be used. Byrd's rules set the terms to be "foreign" - and therefore not eligible for reconciliation - in six cases:

If it does not result in a change in expenditure or income;
If it results in an increase in expenditure or a decrease in income when the committee instructed does not comply with its instructions;
If it is outside the jurisdiction of the committee sending the title or condition to be included in the size of the reconciliation;
If it results in a change in expenditure or income incidental to a non-budget component of the terms;
If that would increase the deficit for a fiscal year beyond those covered by the reconciliation step; or
If you recommend changes in Social Security.

Any Senator may raise procedural objections to a provision that is believed to be invalid, which will then be governed by the Chief Officer, usually at the advice of the Senate Member of Parliament. A vote of 60 senators is required to overturn the decision. The Chief Officer does not need to follow the advice of the Parliament, and the members of Parliament may be replaced by the Senate Majority Leader. The Vice-President as President of the Senate can rule out MPs, but this has not been done since 1975. In 2001, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott dismissed Parliament Robert Dove after dissatisfaction with his decision, replacing him with Alan Frumin.

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Example

The reconciliation bill includes:

Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1980, Pub.L. 96-499 (1980)
The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, Pub.L. 97-35 (1981)
The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1982, Pub.L. 97-253 (1982)
The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA), Pub.L. 97-248 (1982)
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1983, Pub.L. 98-270 (1984)
Budget Reconciliation Omnibus Act of 1985 (COBRA), Pub.L. 99-272 (1986)
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986, Pub.L. 99-509 (1986)
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987, Pub.L. 100-203 (1987)
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989, Pub.L. 101-239 (1989)
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, Pub.L. 101-508 (1990).
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, Pub.L. 103-66 (1993).
Balanced Budget Act of 1995, H.R. 2491 (vetoed December 6, 1995)
Personal Responsibility and Employment Opportunity Law, Pub.L. 104-193 (1996)
Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Pub.L. 105-33 (1997)
Taxulayer Relief Act of 1997, Pub.L. 105-34 (1997)
Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act of 1999, H.R. 2488 (veto September 23, 1999)
The Tax Reconciliation Act of 2000, H.R. 4810 (vetoed 5 August 2000)
The 2001 Economic Tax and Reconciliation Tax Law (EGTRRA), Pub.L. 107-16 (2001)
Employment and Reconciliation Laws for the Elimination of the 2003 Growth Tax, Pub.L. 108-27 (2003)
Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, Pub.L. 109-171 (2006)
The 2005 Tax Prevention and Recovery Act (TIPRA), Pub.L. 109-222 (2006)
Tuition Fee Reduction and Access Act of 2007, Pub.L. 110-84 (2007)
Health and Education Care Reconciliation Act of 2010, Pub.L. 111-152 (2010)
Withholding Taxes and Employment Act of 2017 (2017)

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References

Home - The Budget Process - Research Guides at Columbia University

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Reconciliation (United States Congress)

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