Thoughts on reconciliation

If you keep your eyes on American politics, you've probably heard the word "reconciliation" used a lot in the last couple of months, and you will again. If you're like me, you have only a vague understanding, really, of what it means in this context.

This may help.

it takes 60 votes to pass anything controversial in the Senate, due to the threat of a filibuster. But in 1974, in an effort to cut the nation's soaring deficits, Congress passed a law creating a procedure that could NOT be filibustered and would only need a simple majority of 51 votes to pass.

Without a filibuster-proof procedure, lawmakers reasoned, the Senate would face difficulty passing bills that would make cuts in Medicare and Medicaid -- popular programs which take up a significant portion of government spending. In an "explanation" of why reconciliation is needed, the Senate Budget Committee wrote in 1998:

These changes are considered difficult because the very nature of the programs involved often necessitates changing tax rates or placing restrictions on very popular social programs in order to achieve budgetary savings.

While Republicans argue that the Democrats' health-care plan is as much as about social policy and big government, there is a fiscal component. Reconciliation has also been used in a similar ways by Republican leaders to restructure social programs like welfare reform.