WASHINGTON — As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office next year, top Republicans are sharply divided over the best strategy to advance core components of his agenda when the party gains a slim majority in Congress. The new Congress will give Trump and Republicans the opportunity to pass major legislation using the reconciliation process, which allows bills to pass with a simple majority vote in the Senate, bypassing the 60-vote threshold. However, the debate is over whether to try and pass all of Trump’s key priorities in one comprehensive bill early in the new year or to split them across two smaller bills. This decision has become a major subject of contention among top Republican leaders.
Jason Smith, the top tax writer and chair of the Ways and Means Committee in the House, has been vocal about his preference for a single, comprehensive package. Smith and his allies argue that breaking up the Trump agenda into two bills — with border security and energy policy in the first, and an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cut law in the second — could jeopardize critical elements of the legislation. “My goal is to make sure we’re successful in making Trump’s tax cuts permanent and extended. That is my No. 1 focus,” Smith told reporters off the House floor on Tuesday. “And I believe the best strategy to achieve that is to do one large bill.” Smith emphasized his experience in securing votes, particularly on tax policy, arguing that separating the issues would weaken the chances of passing the tax cuts in a timely manner. “People above me will make the decision, but I’m telling you: I know how to get votes. I’ve been very successful getting votes. I know the House on tax policy better than anyone else. If they want to give me the best opportunity to pass the president’s tax plan, make it all in one bill,” he said.
Just hours later, incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., made his case for a two-bill strategy, advocating for quick movement on issues such as border security, defense, and energy in the first bill, and then addressing cost reductions and the extension of the Trump tax cuts in a subsequent package. “In my view, it makes sense to move quickly on things we know we can do quickly — border, defense, energy,” Thune told reporters. “And then come back with another package that would address some of the savings that can be achieved through reductions in costs in various agencies and bureaucracies, and government programs, and then also deal with the expiring Trump tax cuts later in the year.” Thune argued that this approach would allow Republicans to tackle issues they could agree on swiftly while leaving room to deal with more contentious items, including tax reform, separately. “We’ve got an opportunity to have a couple of different chances at a reconciliation package that would achieve all those objectives,” he said.
The debate over the sequencing of the Trump agenda has extended to the House GOP leadership as well. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., emphasized that the decision was still being made, noting that he would discuss the strategy with Trump this weekend at the Army-Navy football game. Johnson acknowledged the challenges faced by Republicans in passing legislation with only a slim majority in the House (220-215) and a closely divided Senate (53 seats). He expressed concerns about the political fallout from the failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act through reconciliation in 2017, which took seven months of Trump’s first year in office and ended with no success. “We’re having lots of thoughtful discussions about the best play call,” Johnson said. “What we’re deciding right now is the sequence of how we run those plays, and it’s really important. The House and the Senate have different calculations on how that’s done, but we all have exactly the same priorities,” he added, emphasizing the importance of securing the border and preventing tax hikes when some of the Trump tax cuts expire at the end of next year.
President Trump’s comments on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” Sunday added to the confusion when he hinted that there would be two bills. “We have a lot of other things. I have tax cuts. You know, we’ll be submitting in either the first or second package to Congress the extension of the tax cuts,” he told moderator Kristen Welker. “So that might very well be in there. Or, or it’ll come sometime after that.” Trump’s statements appeared to contradict the unified strategy promoted by Smith, suggesting instead a more phased approach to pass his agenda. According to a Republican source familiar with the discussions, Trump has communicated to his two point people on reconciliation — incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller and Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought — that he wants to tackle border security within his first 30 days and leave tax cuts until later.
The division among Republicans is driven by several significant obstacles. Senate rules restrict reconciliation bills to matters of taxes and spending, meaning regulatory provisions or more stringent asylum laws could be stripped out. Additionally, the GOP’s narrow margins in both the House and Senate pose a challenge, with nearly every Republican vote needed for any reconciliation bill to pass. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., said that the party’s thin majority will complicate passing any major legislation without complete consensus. “We have a paper-thin majority of 220-215 in the House,” Emmer said. “Every vote will count. We need to make sure we’re passing legislation that addresses the key priorities like border security and extending Trump’s tax cuts, but we can’t afford to lose any votes.”
Underneath the division are multiple obstacles for Republicans. First, Senate rules restrict reconciliation bills to matters of taxes and spending. That means regulatory provisions or tougher asylum laws could be stripped out. Second, Republicans have a paper-thin House majority of 220-215, with no realistic hope of winning Democratic votes. That is likely to shrink further in the early part of Trump’s presidency with the resignation of Matt Gaetz, of Florida, and the expected resignations of Elise Stefanik, of New York, and Mike Waltz, of Florida, who are expected to leave for jobs in the Trump administration. Corralling nearly every Republican vote will be a daunting task under any circumstance. If one or both packages are projected to add substantially to the debt, it could create a vote-count problem for House GOP leaders.
Conversely, if the GOP breaks up the bills and uses its most valuable “pay-fors” on the first package of border and energy items, it could leave fewer options to limit the deficit impact of the second bill, creating problems securing the votes for it. Rank-and-file Republicans are also divided over the best approach. Conservative Rep. Warren Davidson, of Ohio, said he wants one package for fiscal year 2025 and another for 2026. But former House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs, of Arizona, is pushing for one sweeping reconciliation package, saying he’s worried Republicans might not even get a crack at a second one later in the year because of unforeseen circumstances. “We should be doing the biggest reconciliation package you possibly can conceive of the first time around. I’m not sure you even get the second reconciliation package,” Biggs told NBC News on Tuesday. Asked what would prevent the GOP from getting to a second bite at the apple, Biggs said: “Well, for one thing, you had 30 extra votes in 2017 that you don’t have today.”
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said, “One bill is better than two,” adding that he, Biggs, and Johnson were all freshman lawmakers in 2017. And Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said he’s “standing with Jason,” meaning Smith, the Ways and Means chair, and prefers a single package. “I don’t fear doing one package at all, but I think we ought to do it immediately,” Walberg said in an interview. “I think the American people voted that way: They wanted border control, and they want tax cuts.”
Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., a Ways and Means Committee member, said he doesn’t feel strongly about either approach, predicting that Republicans will find enough savings by cutting “waste and reckless spending over the last four years” during the Biden administration. “Two versus one? I can understand the rationale behind that. You want to get a win upfront,” Murphy said. “I can see both sides. I don’t have a particular preference at this point.”
