Byrd nerds: Why the byzantine process of budget reconciliation exists and how it actually works
b'This week the Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 using the process known as budget reconciliation. The upside? No filibuster is allowed. You only need a majority to approve a reconciliation bill. And the downside? There are strict rules about what can be included. \\n\\nOn the last episode of Playbook Deep Dive, Eric Ueland and Greg D\\u2019Angelo, two GOP budget nerds, previewed the final challenges that the Inflation Reduction Act would face to pass the Senate. They even nailed one of the parliamentarian\\u2019s rulings: she nixed a portion of the bill that would have applied inflation caps to the private pharmaceutical market.\\n\\nFor their most significant policies, neither party has sixty votes. Reconciliation is how presidents get big things through Congress now. And it\\u2019s likely to be that way for the foreseeable future. To understand how major policy changes can happen these days, you need to know how this byzantine process works.\\n\\nIn this week\\u2019s episode, Eric and Greg step back and explain the long history of reconciliation and how it has come to dominate lawmaking in ways never anticipated when the process was created in the 1970s.'