Pete Domenici: “I do not believe 15 years ago that anybody assumed the Budget Act could be used to balance a budget as we are doing it…”

“I do not believe 15 years ago that anybody assumed the Budget Act could be used to balance a budget as we are doing it here today. The reconciliation instruction and then the reconciliation bill are strange-sounding words and a strange-sounding name for a bill. But essentially we have, by evolution and development and some changes in the law, permitted a budget resolution which does not involve the President; it involves just a majority vote in both Houses. We permitted it to be used to force the passage of reform legislation or tax bills such as the one we have before us. I think everybody should recognize a couple of very interesting historic evolutions as this process developed. One is the adoption of the Byrd rule by the U.S. Congress as part of the law that applies to the Senate of the United States. And, obviously, one need not search as to where that came from. It came from Senator Robert Byrd. Essentially, one of the Parliamentarians has praised it this way, that the Byrd rule limits our ability to ride the budget horse into passing all kinds of legislation that have little to do with the budget.”