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‘An exercise in political abuse’: Republicans face legislative gantlet with reconciliation

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Top Senate Republicans want to pass their party’s wide-ranging agenda with two different acts by using a legislative process called budget reconciliation, a technical workaround that avoids the Democratic filibuster in the Senate and allows a law to be passed with a simple majority.

But legislative experts are warning that even doing a single bill through reconciliation is a daunting task that exposes the majority party to procedural pitfalls and political vulnerabilities.

With only the narrowest of majorities in the House, an agenda that could be too expansive for a single bill constrained by reconciliation, pointed resistance from Democrats, and a requirement to raise the debt ceiling, Republicans are attempting to thread the thinnest of congressional needles.

“They almost never do two,” Howard Gleckman, senior fellow with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told The Hill. “It’s such a heavy lift to do one. It’s a real challenge to do two in one year. Technically, you could do it — but not easy.”

Whether House Republicans can get on the same page enough to do a single bill will be a primary focus this week as they meet with President Trump in Florida. Lawmakers on various committees are expected to meet and then deliver reports to leadership on what they can agree on for budget reconciliation by midweek.

While Trump has expressed a preference for moving his entire agenda through "one big, beautiful bill," he said he would accept splitting it up into two bills if that would be easier for........

© The Hill


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