WASHINGTON—A powerful but little-known mechanism is expected to be employed in the upcoming Congress to advance significant parts of President-elect Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.
The budget reconciliation mechanism can be used to pass certain types of legislation without having to clear the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate. By avoiding filibuster, only a simple majority is needed in the Senate.
Reconciliation, established by the 1974 Congressional Budget Act, can be used to pass measures related to three issues: taxation, spending, and debt.
Technically, multiple reconciliation bills can be passed separately within a fiscal year, provided each bill addresses only one of these three issues. For instance, there can be a reconciliation bill solely focused on spending, without including provisions related to taxation or debt. However, reconciliation bills often deal with more than one of the three issues, thus limiting Congress to a single reconciliation bill for the fiscal year….
