Most people vaguely remember hearing about the “One Big Beautiful Bill” last year. Tax cuts, tips, Medicaid, it was everywhere for a few weeks, then the news cycle moved on. What most people don’t know is that Congress is quietly doing it again. Same tool, different target. And if you’re not paying attention to the tool itself, you’re missing the bigger story.
So What Is Reconciliation, Actually?
Passing a law in the Senate normally requires 60 votes which is enough to overcome a filibuster. A filibuster is when someone uses an official process to speak for a long time to delay, block, or protest a law from moving forward in Congress. In a 50-50 or near divided Senate, needing 60 votes means that you need at least some cooperation from the other party. It’s a high bar, and intentionally so, it’s another check and balance.
Budget reconciliation is a workaround. It’s a process that allows certain budget related legislation to pass with just a simple majority of just 51 votes and restricts amendments in the Senate. It was originally designed as a technical tool to help Congress align spending with its own budget targets. Reconciliation first starts with passing a budget resolution, a budget resolution is a first draft of the budget priorities for that year. It does not go to the President and is not a law, so it does not require the standard 60 votes, as it is a set up for the reconciliation process.
The process of reconciliation was created 51 years ago by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. Over the last 51 years, reconciliation has been used 28 times: 23 bills have been signed into law using the reconciliation process. Over time, both parties figured out that “budget related” can be interpreted pretty broadly. And when you’re in power and you have 51 votes, that’s a very attractive feature.
Exhibit A: The One Big Beautiful Bill
In July 2025, Republicans used reconciliation to pass H.R. 1 which is officially known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4th. It was sweeping. The bill permanently extended the 2017 Trump era tax cuts that were set to expire, raised the SALT deduction cap, created new deductions for tipped workers and overtime pay, and poured hundreds of billions into immigration enforcement and defense.
To pay for it, the bill made deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, the federal nutrition assistance program. The Congressional Budget Office estimated it would add $3.4 trillion to the deficit over ten years and result in roughly 12 million Americans losing health coverage. Republicans disputed those projections. The bill passed 51-50 via the process of reconciliation. The 51st vote was cast by Vice President J.D. Vance to end the tie breaking vote in the Senate. The bill then went to the House of Representatives, and on July 3, 2025, the House agreed to the Senate amended version with a 218–214 vote.
Whether you think it was good policy or bad policy, it was undeniably large. The process was not used as a trim-and-adjust budget tool. This was a whole reshaping of federal tax and spending priorities, passed with no votes to spare and no input from the minority party.
Exhibit B: The Bill You Probably Haven’t Heard About
Fast forward to right now. Congress just ended the longest agency shutdown in U.S. history of 76 days but the deal that ended it deliberately left ICE and Customs and Border Protection unfunded. That was the compromise that made bipartisan support possible. And it immediately set up the next fight.
Republicans are now moving to a second reconciliation bill to finish what the shutdown deal left out. On April 23rd, the Senate passed S. Con. Res. 33 which is a budget blueprint that kicks off the reconciliation process for $70 billion in new funding for ICE and CBP. The vote was 50-48, strictly along party lines, and was a permission slip to use the reconciliation process. No Democratic support needed, and none given, since it was a resolution it only required a majority vote. The actual bill that funds ICE and CBP still has to be written and voted on, and the next vote only needs 51 votes in the Senate. The goal is to get a final bill to Trump’s desk by June 1st.
To break it down, the sequence of what is happening is as follows:
- S. Con. Res. 33 (50-48, simple majority) opens the door to reconciliation, which is now done as of April 23rd. Since it was a resolution it did not need 60 votes.
- The actual reconciliation bill ($70B for ICE/CBP) written and voted on next, only needs 51 votes.
It’s a story that’s gotten a fraction of the coverage the first bill did, which is part of what makes it worth paying attention to.
Why This Matters Beyond the Policy
Here’s where I’ll be straight with you about where I stand and I want to be clear this isn’t really a left or right argument.
Reconciliation was designed as a pressure valve. Use it occasionally, for genuinely budget related adjustments, when the normal process breaks down. What’s happening now is different. We’re seeing it used as a primary legislative strategy twice in one Congress, for sweeping policy priorities, with the explicit goal of bypassing the 60 vote threshold.
Democrats have done versions of this too. The Affordable Care Act used reconciliation for a final fix. The Inflation Reduction Act was passed entirely through reconciliation in 2022. This isn’t a Republican invention.
But the normalization of the process is worth naming. When the 60 vote threshold becomes a thing you route around rather than a standard you work toward, it changes what governing looks like. It means major policy, policy that affects millions of people’s healthcare, taxes, and immigration status gets decided by whichever party holds 51 seats, with no requirement to build any consensus at all.
You can think that’s efficient. You may think that’s dangerous. You can think it depends entirely on whether you like the policy in question.
But you should probably know it’s happening.
