The internal GOP sparring over a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open should cast doubt on the viability of pursuing a two-bill approach to enacting President-elect Donald Trump’s policy agenda next year, some key lawmakers say.
“This whole process proved exactly why it should be one reconciliation,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., told Agri-Pulse after a Republican meeting to discuss spending bill plans on Friday. Malliotakis sits on the Ways and Means Committee, the committee responsible for tax legislation.
Republicans have been divided over how to shepherd legislation through Congress next year that would implement Trump’s plans for immigration and energy reform, as well an extension of his 2017 tax cuts and further tax giveaways.
With a razor-thin electoral margin in the Senate, Republicans plan to use a process known as budget reconciliation to pass legislation without needing Democratic support. Reconciliation bills can pass the Senate with a simple majority; other legislation requires 60 votes. But Republicans are divided on whether to roll all of the legislative priorities into a single reconciliation package, or to break it into two and deal with energy and immigration first, and taxes later in the year.
“I've said all along that it needs to be a one-bill reconciliation,” Malliotakis said.
Republican leaders, however, do not share Malliotakis’ assessment. Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., have endorsed a two-bill approach that would see Trump’s border and energy plans enacted through legislation in the first 30-days of his presidency. A subsequent reconciliation bill later in the year would deal with his tax proposals.
Complicating the GOP strategy is that GOP lawmakers say they agreed Friday to include a debt limit increase in a reconciliation bill as well as $2.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years.
Supporters of the one-bill approach see it as a way to secure an early victory on some of Trump’s campaign priorities.
Johnson and Thune have been coordinating with Trump and the transition team on the legislative plans, with Johnson reportedly discussing reconciliation with the president-elect before the Army-Navy football game last weekend, according to Politico.
The Trump transition team, Malliotakis said, was likely “more inclined to do two [bills], but maybe after after seeing this, they’ll see the reason why we can only do one.”
The Trump-Vance transition did not respond to a request for comment.
Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., has also been a vocal proponent of a one-bill strategy over concerns that unnecessary delays to a tax bill could imperil its passage.
Smith reiterated his support for a one-bill approach after the meeting on Friday.
“The best and quickest approach to deliver on all of President Trump's priorities they campaigned on is to have a big, beautiful package,” Smith told reporters, echoing language Trump has previously used to describe a “big, beautiful” wall with Mexico.
“The Ways and Means Committee is ready to deliver on one [bill] and that would be tax cuts, border, energy. I still stand by that,” Smith said.
He added that he would follow whatever direction the Republican conference wants to take, but reiterated, “I think people will see that one reconciliation package is the only way that we'll have success.”
Smith’s comments come the same week a group of nearly 30 Republicans from both chambers wrote to Johnson and Thune expressing their support for a two-bill strategy. The letter, led by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., urged the leadership to ensure that that neither bill adds to the deficit by offsetting costs with spending cuts and a repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act’s green tax credits.
