Can someone explain this to me? (Procedures facing 3 trillion dollar bill)

[LAS14]

"Final congressional approval, which seems certain, would protect a subsequent bill actually enacting the outline’s detailed spending and tax changes from a Republican filibuster in the 50-50 Senate, delays that would otherwise kill it."

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/08/10/nation/senate-debates-dems-35t-budget-gop-launches-attacks/?s_campaign=8315

(Probably behind a pay wall)

[JT45242]

1. Procedures and rules

Most actions in the Senate currently require a 60 vote supermajority to move forward (cloture) to close debate because of the filibuster rules.
Federal judges and a budget reconciliation bill are the current exceptions.

Since this was introdcued as a budget reconciliation bill it only needs a simple majority to get through and not the 60 votes that are normally needed. It made it through the first hurdle last night.

Next steps --
1. go to specific committees to flesh out the details of the framework. For example the committee that deals with transportation will write specific legislation that details how that $XX will be spent, what strings are attached, etc. The committee that deals with taxes (ways and means or whatever it's senate equivalent is) will write specific language about tax changes.

2. After the start of the fiscal year (October 1) the bill can be voted on.

3. There will be a period of debate and proposed amendments to the bill that all face only a simple majority vote. This is where it can get dicey if Synema and Manchin decide to vote with the Republicans as those amendments could cut key parts of the law.

4. A similar law will go through the house that will likely include stuff that won't get through the senate.

5. The reconciliation committee of house/senate will try to make a bill in the middle that will be voted on by both houses. The versions of the house and senate must be identical in order to go to the president.

That is a simplified version of what is next. Hopefully, all runs smoothly and the bill is passed in November.
6. Then Biden can sign it or veto it.

[LAS14]

2. Thank you! DU is great. There's always someone who knows something.

But just to double check, when they say "would protect a subsequent bill actually enacting the outline’s detailed spending and tax changes from a Republican filibuster in the 50-50 Senate," they're simply saying that they have launched the process of budget reconciliation and all subsequent steps fall under that 50/50 rule. Right?

[Johnny2X2X]

3. Nice summary

Thanks.

It seems final passage of something significant is all but guaranteed. Now I don't think it will be $3.5T, but somewhere around $3T +/- .3 is most likely.

And here's the thing, since it's a fully Democratic Bill, it's got $3.5 Trillion of amazing spending to help regular Americans, so it's not like we'll cut out the good parts and be left with $2.8 Trillion of bad parts Republicans picked. There are no bad parts, this is a win no matter what the final bill looks like. I want the full $3.5T, but if we settle on anything above $2.5T this is the most significant piece of legislation in 80 years.

Just heading off the dead enders for when they cut out a half $Trillion we can remind them that this is still an amazing bill.

[abqtommy]

4. Thanks for this!