Conrad, who as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, would oversee attempts to use reconciliation, has criticized the idea. Senate procedures would require the measure be stripped of anything not related to the budget, and the timeframe for the legislation to become deficit-neutral would be five years, instead of the 10 years that lawmakers are currently using.
“You’ll be left with Swiss cheese for legislation,” Conrad said in an Aug. 3 interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose. “Those who say blithely, ‘we’ll just go for reconciliation,’ I don’t think they’ve done their homework.”
Democrats would also be forced to take complete ownership of the plan and might face retaliation from Republicans. Under Senate rules, Republicans could tie the chamber in knots by demanding procedures such as the reading of 1,000-page bills before they are brought to the floor, slowing Senate business.
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