Congressional Republicans had a tough weekend. The Senate parliamentarian, an official who advises members on following the chamber’s rules, determined that many provisions in their One Big Beautiful Bill Act did not qualify for budget reconciliation. Reconciliation is the process on which Republicans are relying to advance their megabill through the Senate. It would enable them to bypass the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold and instead advance the legislation with a bare majority.

This process comes with strict rules for what can be included in the bill, however. Reconciliation is supposed to affect only mandatory spending and revenue levels. Provisions considered “extraneous” to fiscal matters under the Byrd rule — adopted in the 1980s to govern reconciliation — must be removed, lest the legislation require 60 votes to pass the Senate. Given the obvious politics of the Republicans’ bill, winning bipartisan support to meet that threshold is not an option. Therefore, the reconciliation package must undergo a “Byrd bath” to eliminate all provisions that the parliamentarian thinks are more about making policy changes than adjusting the federal budget.

Unfortunately, the removal of such policies will make the Big Beautiful Bill worse. The bill was already a mixed bag for fiscal conservatives. Now, over $250 billion worth of savings will have to go, as well as some immigration enforcement tools and limits on regulatory overreach. Below is a list of key provisions that can no longer be included in the legislation:

One silver lining of this Byrd bath is a provision on artificial intelligence that the parliamentarian surprisingly allowed to stay. This would predicate federal funding to states on the condition they not regulate AI for ten years. Beyond that, there is not much to cheer for other than upholding the rules that sustain the Senate filibuster. Republicans will especially have a hard time filling the holes in their planned budget savings that the Byrd rule has carved out.