"Reconciliation" is getting a lot of attention in Washington lately. Most understand a reconciliation bill can pass the Senate by majority vote after 20 hours of debate, but that's often where the understanding stops. Reconciliation originated in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 as an optional means of changing (mostly) entitlement spending, but not Social Security, and taxes to achieve the deficit target set forth in the budget resolution. Because a reconciliation bill has a high likelihood of becoming law, it quickly became a magnet for extraneous amendments, which Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) deterred in 1985 with the Byrd Rule, now Section 313 of the Budget Act, which lays out six criteria for determining what is extraneous. Implementing these rules in the Senate has become so complicated that no one can be entirely sure of what will emerge until the Senate Parliamentarian has ruled.
