Reconciliation: What Does It Really Mean Anyway?
Written by Ann Pietrangelo on March 6th, 2010 in Health Care Policy, In The News, Inside the Maze.
Reconciliation can sound like a dirty word, depending upon who is doing the speaking, but the process is nothing new and is certainly not out of the bounds of normal politics.
Introduced in 1974, the process of reconciliation is used when Congress issues directives to legislate policy changes in mandatory spending (entitlements) or revenue programs (tax laws) to achieve the goals in spending and revenue contemplated by the budget resolution.
Reconciliation was first used in 1980 and at least 22 times since then on a variety of policies including overhauling the welfare system, and passing several huge tax cuts under George W. Bush. Of the 22 times reconciliation has been used, 16 were approved by a Republican-controlled Senate.
Read this post in its entirety:
Reconciliation: What Does It Really Mean Anyway?
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinwburkett/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
