Congressional Republicans wrestling with how to implement Trump’s priorities

House Speaker Mike Johnson says “if you put all the measures into one package it increases greatly the probability of us achieving all of those objectives and that’s why we’ve been focused on the one bill strategy” to get President-elect Donald Trump’s priorities in place. Jose Luis Magana/AP

Congressional Republicans are trying to work out how to move quickly on President-elect Donald Trump’s priorities, including tax cuts, border security, raising the debt limit and spending cuts.

“I like one big, beautiful bill. I always have and I always will, but if two is more certain, it does go a little bit quicker because you can do the immigration stuff early,” Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago this week.

That seems to be the impasse, trying to cobble everything together in one bill or splitting it up into two. Using a process called budget reconciliation to bypass expected Democratic opposition, Republicans would only need a simple majority in the Senate rather than the traditional 60 votes.

“I think if you put all the measures into one package it increases greatly the probability of us achieving all of those objectives and that’s why we’ve been focused on the one bill strategy,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday.

While Republicans have control of both the House and Senate, the margins are slim and getting behind one strategy is a tall task. While the House appears set on one bill, the Senate might prefer two bills.

“To the tax cut wing of the party, I am with you, but if you hold border security hostage to get tax cuts, you’re playing Russian roulette with our national security,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said this week.

Democrats can’t do much, but the process itself means the policy has to focus on budget-related items. Agenda items that go beyond that could be stripped out.

“I think the standard that the American people are gonna see is does this bill help their lives? Does it make the economy better? Does it lower prices? And that’s what we’re gonna be looking at and if it doesn’t do those things, uh, then I’m not gonna support it and it doesn’t really matter the number of bills uh that they put out it’s gonna be what’s in those bills,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said.

Trump could continue a charm offensive to try and get his way. Axios reports the president-elect is planning a party for Senate Republicans at Mar-a-Lago before his inauguration.

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