With President Donald Trump’s second administration just weeks away, congressional Republicans are gearing up to enact a broad legislative agenda touching on everything from taxes to immigration to fossil fuels. A Monday interview with radio host Hugh HewittTrump noted that his preference for doing so was “one big, beautiful bill,” but said he would be open to two.
To accomplish this, Republicans intend to use a process known as budget reconciliation, which allows them to approve budget-related legislation with a simple majority in the Senate. Doing so enables them to bypass filibuster rules, which would otherwise require a bill to gather 60 votes to advance to the upper chamber. (In this case, the Senate is divided 53-47 in favor of RepublicansPassing a bill by ordinary order would also require a Democratic vote.)
There’s a catch to using this process, though, and it could become a major stumbling block for parts of Trump’s agenda. As the name implies, budget reconciliation is intended only to advance policies — such as spending and tax measures — that have a significant effect on the budget and are not merely incidental. Additionally, a restriction called the Byrd rule states that policies included in a budget reconciliation package are not supposed to affect Social Security or add to deficits after 10 years. Provisions that don’t meet these standards are usually stripped after an intensive review process, an outcome that has dogged both parties in the past.
The legislation is reviewed by congressional experts, including Senate parliamentarians — a nonpartisan official who advises Congress on the interpretation of rules — to determine whether a bill meets these parameters. Lawmakers have the option to ignore the lawmaker’s ruling, but that’s not common, and new Senate Majority Leader John Thune has already said Republicans shouldn’t do that.
There is still much that lawmakers can do using reconciliation. In 2022, Democrats were able to pass the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which included expanded clean energy tax credits, and in 2021, they approved the American Rescue Plan, which included Covid-19 aid and an expanded child tax credit.
In 2017, Republicans advanced the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act using this same process, and will likely look to expand those tax cuts in their upcoming package.
Other policies are unlikely to converge if their primary impact is not budgetary. That was before the Democrats tried to include a federal $15 minimum wage in the American rescue plan, and when they tried To include a path to citizenship for DACA recipients In a version of the Build Back Better Bill. Both were removed after the congressman’s ruling, and the same could be done in a potential Republican bill with issues like immigration and energy, which are not primarily focused on spending and taxes.
What the GOP can do with reconciliation
Efforts to roll back tax cuts and tax credits have been among the policies approved through reconciliation in the past, and moving through the process again is likely to have limited problems. In this case, that would include GOP plans to extend tax cuts passed by the party in 2017, such as changes to the personal tax bracket and business exemptions. It also includes a possible effort to repeal clean energy tax credits that Democrats approved as part of the IRA in 2022, along with tax credits for electric vehicles.
“Any tax cut — as long as it’s not for Social Security and as long as it doesn’t add to the deficit decades later — is fair game,” said Mark Goldwein, senior vice president and Senior Policy Director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budgettold Vox. “The entire deflationary act was done by reconciliation, and it can be reversed by reconciliation or amended by reconciliation.”
Policies that include more spending for immigration-related purposes — as long as they don’t touch discretionary funds — are likely to do well, Goldwein said. Republicans are limited in passing new immigration policy using reconciliation, but they could, for example, allocate more spending to a border wall, border patrol agents and immigration detention at the border.
“Additional funding for various purposes — such as building the wall — has been considered legitimate by lawmakers, since spending is the primary purpose of the provision,” said Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “The funding for the IRS that was included in the Inflation Reduction Act would be a good example of such a provision.”
In the IRA, Democrats included $80 billion in mandatory spending for the IRS, distributed over nearly a decade. Republicans could include a comparable provision on border security and immigration spending this cycle.
Changes to other mandatory spending programs like Medicaid and SNAP are also allowed under the reconciliation, Goldwein notes. That means Republicans could pass provisions like more work requirements for SNAP or changes to Medicaid’s matching rates for different services.
Principles that cannot survive reconciliation
Policies that are unlikely to advance through reconciliation are primarily viewed as ending other policies, even if they also affect the budget. These limitations will likely undermine the immigration and energy policies that Republicans are able to incorporate.
In 2021, for example, Elizabeth McDonough, a member of the Senate, set it Democrats could not include a path to citizenship for DACA recipients — undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children — in a $3.5 trillion version of the Build Back Better bill. Democrats argued that such efforts would have a significant budgetary impact and allow more immigrants access to social programs, but McDonough ruled that those effects would be secondary to the law’s main purpose, which is to provide DACA recipients with a means to gain legal status. .
In the new Congress, other proposals to change immigration policy — such as past Republican bills To make it difficult to seek asylum — similarly would not be possible through reunification, said Heidi Altman, director of federal advocacy at the National Immigration Law Center. Efforts to change eligibility for work visas or the number of visas available are also likely to face uncertainty, experts told Vox.
“Funding for immigration is changing things, no problem,” Goldwein said. “Where it gets difficult is when they make regulatory changes that have budgetary implications.”
On the energy front, the same argument holds, with regulatory changes more likely from bills by MPs. Republicans have expressed interest in allowing the reform — which could speed up approval of energy and infrastructure projects — as part of the reconciliation, though it’s unclear if it will gain traction. Approval of Member of Parliament. A controversial inclusion could also be rolling back vehicle emissions standards that were set during the Biden administration.
Congress usually listens to MPs
Because the Senate largely sets its own rules and regulations, lawmakers have the power to ignore a member of parliament’s judgment or even fire an official with whom they disagree. It’s not common to do this though.
Experts point out that parliamentarians will be ignored a A rare and significant break from traditionAnd one that is unlikely to entertain the Senate. A Interview with Punchbowl News on Monday, Thune said that impeachment would be “tantamount to killing the filibuster.”
“We can’t go there,” he told Punchbowl reporter Andrew Desiderio. “People need to understand that.”
The same would happen if lawmakers fired a lawmaker, which last happened in 2001 under Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.
As things stand, Republicans will be forced to repeal provisions that don’t comply with reconciliation rules, focusing heavily on tax cuts, repealing tax credits and increasing spending for immigration programs — but potentially angering Trump in the process. .
“I think the core of that is probably going to be a multi-year, but not permanent, expansion in large part [2017 tax cuts] … with some funding for the border and some funding for defense, and maybe a few additional tax cuts, like no tax on tips,” Goldwyn said.
