House committees have begun scheduling markups for various pieces of the upcoming budget reconciliation package.
Both the House and Senate have passed budget resolutions, which instruct each committee on how much funding to cut or a cap on funds to be spent.
The Constitution dictates that all funding bills must originate in the House.
Once all committees of jurisdiction pass their individual bills, they will be put together and passed by the House. The Senate will then repeat that process.
Once both chambers have passed their bills, differences must be reconciled and a final bill agreed to. Only then can both chambers pass the bill and send it to the President.
The House Agriculture Committee plans to begin its markup Tuesday night and continue it into Wednesday. The tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, where many of the bill’s items of jurisdiction are found, plans to hold its markup on Tuesday.
The budget reconciliation process has strict rules: Anything included in the bill must have a primary impact on spending, and not just any policy provision can be included.
The process allows for passage of a bill along a simple majority, meaning Republicans could pass the final bill with a simple majority in the House and just 50 votes in the Senate.
