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This report discusses the budget resolution that include budget reconciliation directives instructing one or more committees to recommend legislative changes to meet the direct spending and revenue levels included in the budget resolution.

Item 1025-C, 1025-D (microfiche). ; Shipping list no.: 86-967-P. ; Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Examines the era of large government deficits, brief period of surpluses, and return to deficit financing, defining the policy process as institutional transactions between executive, legislative, and bureaucratic branches and government and response of voters as they relate to government provision of public goods; US and European Union; 3 articles. Contents: The ideological roots of deficit reduction policy, by Andrew J. Taylor; The success of the 1993 budget reconciliation bill at reducing the federal budget deficit, by Patrick Fisher; Meeting the Maastricht targets, by Karl H. Kahrs.

The debate of budgeting issues in the 1980s culminated in a dramatic change in 1990—the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. The negotiations leading to this agreement considered the status of the deficit and the philosophical shift from "no new taxes" to "fair taxes." It led to changes in direct spending, enforcement of budget targets, timing of the budget, sequesters usage, tax increases, and entitlement reforms.

Reconciliation forces Congress to consider issues in redistributive terms and alters traditional roles and relationships, but this legislative technique may be short-lived.The 1981 battle of the budget might leave a deeper imprint on legislative behavior than on federal programs and expenditures. The process that produced the omnibus reconciliation bill was extraordinary in its scope and in its integration of diverse legislative activities. More than 30 House and Senate committees were drawn into the reconciliation process and more than half of the Members of Congress participated in the conferences that resulted in the reconciliation decision. The outcome was not a perfectly consistent set of budget decisions, but for a legislature that thrives on the dispersion of power, reconciliation demanded much more cohesion and coordination than Congress normally achieves.It is too early to determine whether reconciliation will become a permanent feature of the congressional budget process or whether it will be applied as extensively in the future as it was in 1981. If it were confined to a few committees and only changed the budget at the margins, reconciliation might not affect basic legislative roles and relationships. But if it continues to demand the active cooperation of numerous committees and tries to change major parts of the budget, reconciliation would certainly lead to a redistribution of legislative power.