“The American people may be a little confused about what ‘reconciliation’ means,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said in a recent Senate speech, before providing a simple explanation of what the term means – and why it’s so important to American taxpayers and businesses.
While national news headlines report that Republicans are crafting a “reconciliation bill” that they hope will make its way to Pres. Trump’s desk for signature into law, the esoteric term is mostly outside the general public’s vernacular – prompting Sen. Kennedy to offer a definition:
“A reconciliation bill is just a budget bill. That’s all it is. It deals with spending of taxpayer money.”
“And, why is it important?” the senator asked rhetorically.
Kennedy answered the question by providing three important goals of his party’s “reconciliation bill”:
- “The first goal of our reconciliation bill is to try to help get those prices down.”
- “The second part of reconciliation: we’re going to continue to try to reduce (costly) rules and regulations.”
- “The third thing we’re going to try to do in reconciliation… is redesign the tax code so it looks like somebody designed it on purpose.”
To combat inflation, the reconciliation bill will cut the excessive government spending that drove inflation during the Biden Administration, Sen. Kennedy said.
“All these rules and regulations have a price,” Kennedy continued:
“When you’re adding $2 trillion in costs that fall on that backs of businesswomen and businessmen, to stay in business they’ve got to pass the costs of all those rules and regulations on to the consumer.”
To achieve its third goal, Republicans’ reconciliation bill would make the Trump tax cuts permanent before they expire at the end of the year, Kennedy said:
“During President Trump’s first term, passed the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. We cut taxes by $4.3 trillion. And, boy, did it work. The economy took off like a SpaceX rocket ship.”
If the Trump tax cuts are allowed to expire, American will suffer a $4.3 trillion tax increase that will devastate the economy, Kennedy said, declaring extension of the tax cuts to be the most important goal of the reconciliation bill.
Higher inflation isn’t even the worst consequence the country will suffer, if the Trump tax cuts aren’t extended, Sen. Kennedy warned:
“Now, I don’t want to minimize the role that reconciliation will play in lowering prices and lowering inflation. That’s important.
“But, worse than inflation is depression. And, if we don’t extend these tax cuts and make them permanent, we’re going to be in a depression.”
“And, that’s really what the reconciliation bill is all about,” Sen. Kennedy concluded.
To qualify for reconciliation status, a bill must address only government spending/funding issues.
A major advantage of a reconciliation bill is that can be passed by just a simple majority of votes because it can’t be filibustered. Otherwise, a bill would require 60 votes to end Senate debate and proceed to a vote on the legislation.