Sen. Conrad on Reconciliation

Senator Kent Conrad, (D-ND) chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, writes on the role of reconciliation in today's Washington Post. He points out that reconciliation is not being used to pass health reform. Health reform passed the Senate following the usual tortured process with 60 votes. Reconciliation is being used to pass a "fixer" bill that will clean up mistakes, like Nebraska's windfall Medicare match.

He points out that reconciliation has been used many times, including times in which the impact on the Federal deficit was significant -- the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts which resulted in increases in the deficit of $1.3 trillion and $350 billion respectively. The planned use of reconciliation to amend the health reform package will reduce the deficit by $130 billion over the next 10 years, and by $1.3 trillion between 2020 and 2030, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.