The Signal Sitdown

The budget reconciliation process stands as President Donald Trump's and congressional Republicans’ best—and likely only—hope to pass their agenda through Congress.

While this policymaking mechanism has become more well-known in recent years because recent presidents have used it to get their policies through Congress, the budget reconciliation process is difficult to untangle—even for the seasoned Washington insider.

Budget reconciliation, however, does not evade the understanding of Richard Stern, the director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation. Stern joined me this week on “The Signal Sitdown” to discuss the players, procedures, and policy options on the table as Republicans consider their legislative path forward.

Reconciliation, “is the one shot we have to really get all these things done,” Stern told me. “Really, almost all of the agenda can and should be in this bill.”

“That's both border security, its interior immigration enforcement, deportations, but it's also permitting reform, regulatory reform, deregulation, unleashing our energy resources. We could go after the deep state. We could dismantle the deep state if we really wanted to,” Stern said of what could be accomplished in budget reconciliation.

Though there are limitations imposed on what can be done through budget reconciliation, Stern suggested Republicans can go big on it because the Senate can make changes to the rules that govern the reconciliation process—and some of those rules are in dire need of reform.

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