Reconciliation Directives: Components and Enforcement

Megan Suzanne Lynch
Analyst on Congress and the Legislative Process

The purpose of the reconciliation process is to enhance Congress's ability to bring existing spending, revenue, and debt-limit laws into compliance with current fiscal priorities established in the annual budget resolution. When Congress adopts a budget resolution, it is agreeing upon its budgetary goals for the upcoming fiscal year. In some cases, for these goals to be achieved, Congress must pass legislation that alters current revenue, direct spending, or debt-limit laws. Reconciliation instructions are the means by which Congress can establish the roles that specific committees will play in achieving these goals. 

Budget reconciliation is an optional, congressional process that consists of several different stages. The first stage in the reconciliation process is the adoption of the budget resolution. If Congress intends to utilize the reconciliation process to achieve its budgetary goals, reconciliation directives (also referred to as reconciliation instructions) must be included in the annual budget resolution. 

To achieve the budgetary goals set forth in the budget resolution, reconciliation directives designate which committee(s) should report reconciliation legislation, the date by which the committee(s) should report, the dollar amount of budgetary change to be achieved in the reconciliation legislation, and the time period over which the impact of the budgetary change should be measured. They might also include language identifying the type of budgetary change that should be reported as well as other procedural provisions, contingencies, and programmatic direction. This report discusses these various components of reconciliation instructions. 

There is no procedural mechanism for requiring a committee to report reconciliation legislation on time, or at all. Each chamber, however, has methods that it can employ to allow it to move forward with reconciliation legislation and to include legislative language that falls within the non-reporting committee's jurisdiction, in the event that a committee has not reported. These methods vary by chamber.


Date of Report: April 15, 2010
Number of Pages: 14
Order Number: R41186
Price: $29.95

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