Senate GOP Leadership Wants An ‘Anorexic-Like’ Reconciliation Package. Not Everyone Agrees.

TPM Article Topics
1

Originally published at: Senate GOP Leadership Wants An ‘Anorexic-Like’ Reconciliation Package. Not Everyone Agrees.

Congress is back in town from their two-week Easter recess and Senate Republicans are trying to execute on a second reconciliation package as Congress continues to be consumed by a 58-day Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown, resignations and potential Democratic-led war powers votes. As Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) explained it on Monday…

2

I could have sworn there was a time where a reconciliation bill had to reduce the deficit. I thought there was also a restriction that reconciliation could only be used once per year, or maybe it was once per year outside the federal budget.

Did the Senate change the rules at some point or am I dreaming? Maybe those restrictions only apply when Democrats lead the Senate, like many other niceties of good governance.

3 Likes
3

I believe that you’re thinking of the rule that a reconciliation bill cannot increase the budget deficit beyond the budget window (which is typically 10 years). The problem with that rule is there’s a number of accounting tricks that have been regularly used that make it fairly toothless.

For example, in the first Trump administration the TCJA passed in 2018 and doubled the Estate Tax exemption (from $5 million to $10 million) along with giving other tax breaks to the top 1%, but those provisions were supposed to sunset at the end of 2025. Instead of sunsetting those changes were made permanent last year as part of the Beautiful for Billionaires Bill because of a different accounting trick.

3 Likes
4

Ah, yes, that’s it. I wasn’t quite getting what the article was saying on that when I read it quickly this morning, and I had forgotten about the stupid shit pulled to essentially do whatever they want.

Thanks.

1 Like
5

New AP Style Guide entries for Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL):

  1. On first reference Tuberville will always be preceded by “Florida resident:” ex. Florida resident Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).

  2. Due to steep competition, Tuberville will no longer be defined as “the stupidest Senator” or “intellectually challenged Senator” or similar derogatory modifiers regardless of factuality.

5 Likes