You’ve heard the word “reconciliation” in the news. The Obama Administration heath care reform might be passed using an oft-misunderstood method called “budget reconciliation.”

Well, what is budget reconciliation?

Here are the quick facts:

  • It’s a process which allows the government to change law
  • It only requires a majority of votes instead of 60
  • It applies to laws relating to the budget only
  • Both, Republicans and Democrats have used this process consistently over the years to enact healthcare laws
  • President Bush used it to enact the $1.8 trillion tax cuts

Budget reconciliation is a 2-step process by which the government attempts to “reconcile” budget goals with current legislation. The policies that the government aims to implement through the federal budget reconciliation process are of a financial nature–those aims that serve the purpose of taxation and spending.

 

The big difference with budget reconciliation and the “normal” method is that under the budget reconciliation process, you only need 51 votes in order to pass a bill in the Senate, as opposed to 60 votes.

In the current Administration, this budget reconciliation process would help greatly in yanking out the super-filibuster that has been clogging the drains of legislation this year, especially with regard to healthcare laws.

And no, it’s not just a Democrat thing. Ronald Reagan used federal budget reconciliation to enact COBRA: The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act.

I only wish more of our journalists actually knew what the history of budget reconciliation was, because the public risks to be greatly misinformed. Luckily, The Washington Post has Ezra Klein, a man who is surprisingly younger than most commentators and political analysts. Yet, he seems to be getting the point across far better than many of his older and wiser counterparts. In his blog, he explains budget reconciliation and reminds Republicans that despite the fact that they now cry “foul!”, they had used budget reconciliation many, many times before, including for health care.

The problem is that with such a lack of understanding on this topic, people are being fed what to believe. But when even the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee can’t articulate the concept of budget reconciliation, we certainly can’t expect Joe the Plumber to make any sense of it.

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