Every reconciliation effort takes its own unique journey given the complicated procedural two-step required, along with the fact that they are usually conducted against the backdrop of very slim majorities and requiring near-unanimity for success. The twists and turns and horse trading necessary to draw them to completion are all very different. History gives us very few rules for how the next one(s) might develop. Still, we can look back to the last four reconciliation efforts in modern Congressional history and try to draw a few lessons, namely:

1. 2017, the GOP effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act
2. 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)
3. 2021, the American Rescue Plan (ARP)
4. 2021-2022, the Build Back Better / Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT:

In 2021, Democrats were able to wrap up their first reconciliation bill on March 11, 69 days into the Congress (50 days into the Administration). In 2017, Republicans’ ACA repeal reconciliation effort ultimately failed on July 28, 206 days into the Congress (189 days into the Administration). But ARP was largely “off the shelf,” while ACA repeal involved more novel policy adjudications, so if anything, the timeline for a 2025 effort is likely to look more like the 2017 effort.

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First, the quickest of overviews of reconciliation                                                                                

Reconciliation is a special tool that allows for budget-based legislation to pass with a simple majority vote in the Senate. However, in order to unlock reconciliation, the House and Senate must first agree on a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions, which also requires a simple majority vote and does not need to be signed by the President.

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Theoretically, the budget could be agreed to very quickly.

In 2017, with a Republican trifecta superficially committed to repealing the Affordable Care Act, the House and Senate were able to agree to a budget resolution by January 13, just 10 days after the swearing in of the 115^th Congress and seven days before the President was even sworn in. However, while this was the fastest an agreement was reached on the first-step budget resolution[1] among the four examples, this was also the only of the four efforts that was ultimately unsuccessful. 

Finishing a budget resolution prior to Inauguration isn’t necessary for success. For the other quick-start reconciliation effort among the four examples (the American Recue Plan in 2021), the House and Senate took a bit more time, not agreeing to a budget resolution until February 5, 33 days after the 117^th Congress convened.[2]

The time between agreeing to a budget resolution to getting a reconciliation bill signed into law can swing wildly.

For relatively smooth reconciliation efforts (in our two examples, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the American Rescue Plan), it took between 34 and 57 days from agreement on the final budget resolution to actually getting the reconciliation bill signed into law. 

For more roundabout process, like the Build Back Better-to-Inflation Reduction Act saga, it can take nearly a full year (357 days).

Of course, reconciliation isn’t always successful. Despite agreeing on a budget resolution to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Republicans never completed that task in 2017. That said (for the sake of this exercise), the House first tried to pass (but had to pull from the floor) the American Health Care Act in March of 2017, 70 days after agreeing to the budget resolution. The House ultimately passed their bill in early May, 111 days after agreeing to the budget resolution. The bill was ultimately killed by Senator John McCain’s “thumbs down” vote in late July, 196 days after the budget resolution. 

1. 2017, the GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act: NEVER
2. 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: 57 days between budget resolution and law (and in fact, 156 days after the initial House passage of the budget resolution)
3. 2021, the American Recovery Plan: 34 days between budget resolution and law
4. 2021-2022, Build Back Better / Inflation Reduction Act: 357 days between budget resolution and law

All in all, if things are going relatively smoothly, we should still give one- or two-months’ time between agreement of a budget resolution and eventual enactment into law. If it takes more than two months’ time (say, 70 to 111 days like the Obamacare repeal effort), history would suggest that effort might be doomed to ultimate failure.

What are the lessons for the second bill?

In both the trifecta Congresses in our example (the 115^th and 117^th), an effort was made for two reconciliation bills, sparked by budget resolutions covering the past year and the current year (in the context of 2025, that would be FY25[1] and FY26).

In 2017, the House started the process on a second budget resolution before the first reconciliation bill was completely dead. The House tried a fulsome budget resolution, not just a “shell” or “de minimis” budget intended to spark reconciliation. However, that budget resolution wasn’t ultimately agreed to until late October, 90 days after the Affordable Care Act repeal was officially dead.

In 2021, agreement on the second budget resolution was reached in August, 166 days after the first bill, the American Rescue Plan, was signed into law. 

Therefore, history suggests that if the next Congress is to pursue multiple reconciliation bills, it’ll take 3-6 months for them to even truly get started on the second bill after enactment of the first. From then, it can take another two months (57 days) to enactment of the second bill (as in the case of TCJA) or up to a full year (357 days) as in the case of the Inflation Reduction Act.

APPENDIX: Recent Reconciliation Timelines

2017 ACA

• FY17 resolution
  • S.Con.Res.3, 115^th Congress, 
    • “Reduce the deficit by not less than $1B for E&C & W&M / HELP & Finance”
  • Passed the Senate, 1/12/17
  • Passed the House, 1/13/17
• H.R. 1628, AHCA
  • Pulled from the House, 3/24/17
  • Passed House, 5/4/17
  • Failed the Senate, 7/28/17

2017 TCJA

• FY18 resolution
  • H.Con.Res.71, 115^th Congress
    • “Increase the deficit by not more than $1.5T for W&M / Finance” and “Reduce the deficit by not less than $1B for ENR / HNR”
  • Passed the House, 7/19/17
  • Passed the Senate, 10/5/17
  • Agreement in the House, 10/26/17
• H.R. 1, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
  • Passed House, 11/16/17
  • Passed Senate, 12/2/17
  • Senate and House passage, 12/20/17
  • Enactment, 12/22/17

2021 ARP

• FY21 resolution
  • S.Con.Res.5
    • Specific “increase the deficit by not more than $X” directives given to 12 different committees.
  • 2/5/21, House and Senate
• H.R. 1319, American Rescue Plan Act of 2021
  • Passed House, 2/27/21
  • Passed Senate, 3/6/21
  • Agreed to in House, 3/10/21
  • Enactment, 3/11/21

2022 IRA

• FY22 resolution
  • S.Con.Res.14, 117^th Congress
    • Specific “increase the deficit by not more than $X” directives given to 12 different committees.
    • For Finance, a de minimis “increase the deficit by not less than $1B” instruction.
  • Passed in Senate, 8/11/21
  • Agreed in House, 8/24/21
• H.R. 5376, Inflation Reduction Act of 2022
  • House passage (“Build Back Better”), 11/19/21
  • Senate passage of IRA, 8/7/22
  • House agreement, 8/12/22
  • Enactment, 8/16/22
     

[1] Given the House already marked up a FY25 resolution, that process would require some kind of amendment in the House or agreeing to a Senate resolution.

[1] It is worth noting that these were de minimis instructions to reduce the deficit. Instructions to increase the deficit are generally subject to more scrutiny.

[2] Note, the Georgia runoffs didn’t occur until January 5 and were ultimately called days later, with those Senators not being sworn in January 20^th, changing the composition of the Senate.