Another Week, Another Deficit‑Increasing Reconciliation Bill
Congress is preparing to vote this week on a new reconciliation package that would add $72 billion to the deficit for immigration enforcement. Lawmakers are also considering a reconciliation bill later this year that could increase defense spending by hundreds of billions of dollars. These proposals continue a troubling pattern: reconciliation, created as a tool for deficit reduction, is now routinely used to fast-track costly legislation with a simple majority.
Reviving the “Conrad Rule,” named after former U.S. Senate Budget Chair Kent Conrad, would require 60 votes for reconciliation to be used to increase the deficit. As Conrad put it on the Concord Coalition’s podcast Facing the Future, “Reconciliation was designed for one purpose and one purpose only and that was to facilitate deficit reduction.” Today, he warned, it is being used in ways that “further explode the debt.”
Reconciliation: A Tool Gone Off Track
Reconciliation allows certain budget legislation to bypass the Senate filibuster and pass with 51 votes (or a majority of Senators who are present) instead of 60 (or ⅗ of the Senators who are present). It was intended to apply to mandatory spending and tax policy, where changes to underlying law are required, to reduce the deficit. But in recent years, reconciliation has been flipped on its head in two profound ways:
- Instead of enforcing fiscal discipline, it has become a fast‑track for deficit‑increasing bills.
- The process has increasingly been used to increase discretionary spending, which is normally handled through the annual appropriations process. This shift has created multi-year pots of funding for agencies that are subject to less oversight and accountability.
A Decade of Debt‑Driven Reconciliation
Over the past ten years, both parties have used reconciliation to add $6.8 trillion to the national debt (not including interest):
- 2017: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act added $1.5 trillion.
- 2021: The American Rescue Plan added $1.9 trillion.
- 2025: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was projected, when it passed, to add $3.4 trillion.
These bills moved swiftly through Congress under reconciliation rules despite their enormous cost. The new $72 billion package and the potential defense reconciliation bill would continue this pattern.
Ignoring the Real Fiscal Threats
While reconciliation cannot be used to address Social Security’s shortfalls, it has failed to confront the looming challenges in Medicare. The Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund is projected to be depleted in 2033, triggering an automatic 11 percent cut to provider payments. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that OBBBA will likely accelerate insolvency to 2032.
Conrad warned that rising debt is already constraining the nation’s ability to respond to crises. “As interest piles up, it reduces your ability to do other things,” he said. “Your ability… to respond to the needs of the American people are reduced with increasing pressure as this debt builds.” Last year, interest costs neared $1 trillion and exceeded total defense spending.
He added that high debt levels leave the country vulnerable: “You always want a margin… to deal with a possible crisis. That ability is being dramatically reduced by this pileup of debt.”
Reviving the Conrad Rule
From 2007 to 2015, the “Conrad Rule,” as part of the Senate rules, prohibited reconciliation bills from increasing the deficit in years one, five, or 10. Conrad explained why he created it: “I was very concerned about that fast‑track procedure… being used to increase deficits when it was specifically designed to reduce deficits.” The rule required 60 votes for any reconciliation bill that added to the deficit, restoring the guardrails reconciliation was meant to have.
According to Conrad, the rule “worked like a charm” by preventing reconciliation from being used as a shortcut for deficit‑increasing legislation. But it was eliminated when control of Congress changed hands, and reconciliation has since become a vehicle for large, partisan, and costly bills.
Conclusion
Senator Conrad’s warning is clear: “The longer you wait, the more draconian the solution has to be. That’s a mathematical certainty.” With Congress once again considering deficit‑increasing reconciliation bills, the need for fiscal discipline is urgent.
Reinstating the Conrad Rule would be a meaningful step toward restoring the original purpose of reconciliation and putting the federal budget back on a responsible path.
