As Republicans settle into their new majorities in both the House and Senate, the party is planning to act swiftly to secure early wins that will allow President-elect Donald Trump to advance his agenda quickly.
However, Republicans still need to agree on what matters to prioritize before they can get the wheels turning in the 119th Congress. Although they’ll hold control of Congress, their slim margins in both chambers will make it easier said than done to achieve the aggressive changes Trump is hoping to implement after he takes office on Jan. 20, 2025.
“We’re still having a lot of conversations about the structure,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) told reporters in December. “The good news is there are a lot of really good, important things that we want to do in reconciliation.”
Because of filibuster rules in the Senate, most legislation requires 60 votes to advance bills to the floor for a final vote — meaning Republicans will need to rely on at least seven Democrats to vote with them. However, Republicans are planning to circumvent Democratic opposition on key agenda items by using a procedure known as budget reconciliation.
Through that process, Republicans can prevent the usage of a filibuster to expedite the passage of certain legislation and go around the minority party by enacting key pieces of their agenda with a simple majority vote.
There are certain rules for how often reconciliation can be used, and Republicans will only be able to utilize it for budget-related legislation such as taxes, spending, and the debt limit.
Republicans won’t be able to start moving their spending priorities through Congress on Day One. Reconciliation requires both the House and Senate to pass a budget resolution, which sets tax and spending levels that are then directed to specific committees to achieve a certain budgetary outcome.
Once those committees create legislation adhering to those outcomes, it is considered a reconciliation bill that is later added to the legislation.
As a result, it could take weeks to get legislation finalized before it’s ready for a simple majority vote in the Senate, and Congress will still need to deal with a slew of other matters, such as confirming Trump’s Cabinet nominees and finalizing the fiscal 2025 budget before the shutdown deadline on March 14.
Meanwhile, Republicans still need to agree on how to proceed with reconciliation before they can start drafting a budget resolution.
While some GOP leaders, such as incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), want to move forward with two reconciliation bills, other Republicans have pushed for one massive piece of legislation to ensure everything gets down by the end of the year.
Thune suggested to colleagues in December that Republicans should focus their first reconciliation resolution on border funding, energy production, and defense spending while leaving tax-related measures for a second piece of legislation later in the year.
However, that’s raised concerns among some House Republicans, such as Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO), who said the party should extend Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act right away before it expires at the end of 2025.
However, there are other proposals Republicans have weighed adding to the tax legislation, such as Trump’s campaign promises to end taxes on tips, and they haven’t yet figured out how to pay for the cuts without increasing the national debt.
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At the same time, Republicans must also find a way to tuck in a measure to raise the debt ceiling before the country is expected to reach its limit as soon as this summer. During negotiations for the last continuing resolution bill, House GOP leaders made a handshake agreement to raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $2.5 trillion in spending cuts elsewhere, lawmakers familiar with the talks told the Washington Examiner.
Whether that will be included in the first reconciliation legislation or the second is still up for discussion.
