Republicans have had control of both the House and Senate for less than a week, and it’s already a mess, with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune unable to agree on the path forward to passing Donald Trump’s destructive agenda of cutting taxes for the rich, deporting a major swath of the nation’s workforce, and slashing the federal budget to levels that would require deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Thune wants to break Trump’s agenda into two bills: one focusing on immigration and another on tax cuts and spending. Johnson wants one bill that encompasses everything.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump said he wants “one powerful Bill” (unnecessary capitalization in the original).
But shortly after saying he wants one bill, he told conservative radio propagandist Hugh Hewitt that he is not opposed to the two-bill strategy.
“I’m open to either way as long as we get something passed as quickly as possible,” Trump told Hewitt.
YouTube Video
It’s the clearest sign yet that Trump, who often changes his mind on what he wants to do after watching talking heads on the GOP propaganda network Fox News, could be more of a hindrance than a helper for congressional Republicans.
But whether to put Trump’s agenda in one bill or two is the least of Republicans’ worries.
Immigration reform and tax laws are some of the hardest types of legislation to pass. And in the House, Johnson will likely have literally zero votes to spare for the first few months of Congress. That’s because Trump nominated two House members to positions in his administration, and both are expected to be confirmed. This will shrink Johnson’s current 219-vote majority to 217, compared with Democrats’ 215 votes. That means that if just one Republican defects on a vote, it will result in a 216-216 tie, and the bill will fail.
Given that House Republicans could barely agree on whether Johnson should be speaker or even the rules on how the House will be run for the next two years, it could be nearly impossible to get them all to perfectly stick together to change the country’s immigration and taxation policies.
What’s more, Republicans want to use budget reconciliation to pass Trump’s policies—a complicated procedural move that will allow the GOP to bypass the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold so they can pass legislation without needing to compromise with Democrats.
From NBC News:
The 50-vote reconciliation process means the package must follow strict rules and be limited to matters involving taxes and spending. Under what’s called the “Byrd Rule” (named for late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.), senators from either party can challenge parts of a reconciliation bill that don’t meet those criteria. The Senate parliamentarian must rule whether those provisions are really about taxes and spending or not—and if not, they’re stripped out.
The only way to avoid that is to overrule the parliamentarian, which even some hard-line rank-and-file Republicans are already saying they prefer not to do.
Democrats, meanwhile, are focused on drawing attention to what is in Republicans’ bills, rather than how Republicans are negotiating them.
“Don’t pay attention to the debate Republicans are having about passing Trump’s agenda in one bill or two bills. Pay attention to the substance of the legislation—screwing seniors and poor kids in order to pad the pockets of Trump’s ultra wealthy friends,” Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said on Monday.
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