I am not a specialist in parliamentary rules of the Senate, you know who is? Lawrence O'Donnell, more than a decade in finance committee.
(That's why this is a really hard question to answer, let me try to explain). Taken with a grain of salt.
Technically, any legislation takes only 50 votes, but can be filibustered by the minority (their choice) to override that filibuster it requires 60 votes,
(this you probably know).
Technically, any legislation that is primary budgetary takes only 50 votes (keep the government running under normal budgetary perimeters)
that restricted procedure is called reconciliation and must lower the deficit. The Senate parliamentarian decides what is and what is not allowed.
Technically, you could defund and cripple most laws that require funding, but you can't actually kill them,
technically, you can defund and overlay Obama care, which would modify it so much that it would not be Obama care anymore, Obama care lite, Ryan care Trump care.
The Senate is the only body that has protections for the minority party, the majority usually does not run roughshod over the minority party. 2 Foxes and 1 chicken voting on what's for dinner
And brings us to why I use "technically" terminology, it is believed the majority have the power to destroy this last tradition because they have the power set their own rules with 50 votes.
So technically the Senate can if it wanted to "I think" defund any government program, and basically kill it with only 50 votes.
As long as it reduces the deficit, doing that would guarantee each senator voting for that would lose their job next election
= new reply since forum marked as read
