Day 79.

Here’s something I know a little about. Congressional budget reconciliation. Wait, don’t go!

This is important. This speaks to what’s going on right now. It’s been a scary couple of days, and it’s important to know what is and isn’t happening. The information below will help you stay clear going forward. I’ll do my best to explain clearly. If I’ve failed, let me know and ask me questions!

Reconciliation is a part of how Congress decides to spend money. The House has 435 voting members, and a simple majority rules. The Senate is more complex. Under the general rules of the Senate, most matters require 60 votes to end open debate by way of a Cloture motion.* Without an end to open debate, Senators can go on forever. It’s called a filibuster. Since you need 60 votes to end it, you’re going to need a bipartisan coalition to do so.

However, some items concerning spending, revenue, or debt limit bills, or any combination of those requires a simple majority. Since there are 100 Senators (and 1 Vice President who presides over the Senate, and acts as a tie-breaker), a majority is 50 for Republicans right now (there are 51 of them). What qualifies for the simple majority rule? Any of these items without a negative budget impact, or with a negative budget effect of 10 years or less.** That’s why the Bush tax cuts were only in effect for 10 years – they were passed under the reconciliation process.

Applying this to the Affordable Care Act, this infographic makes more sense. Everything that requires 50 votes is a budget matter: medicaid expansion; the employer and individual mandates (which are taxes); premium subsidies; and new taxes to pay for any changes. Without these elements, though, the remaining portions of the act become less stable, because everything that pays for them is a budget matter, especially the ban on denial for pre-existing conditions; limits on age rating; and the ban on setting rates based on health status.

That was A LOT. And it only really related to healthcare. But there’s one more point I want to make. We saw a lot of executive orders for a lot of things these past couple of days. Know this. In the vast majority of cases, anything in these orders that required spending will need approval from both the House and the Senate. That includes a wall, and three times the border officers. Tariffs on Mexican trade.

We don’t know what we don’t know, but we know what we know.

How strange is it that I just felt a bit nostalgic for Donald Rumsfield?

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*Not addressing nominations, which are simple majority approved, with the exception of Supreme Court nominations. Stay tuned!

**Another exception here for the Social Security Act.