WASHINGTON (PNN) - January 5, 2025 - Mike Johnson (Lou.) has told his allies on Capitol Hill he plans to use the budget reconciliation process to pass huge chunks of President-elect Donald J. Trump's policy changes.
Like Democrats under fascist pretender Joe Biden, they are planning to use the process that would allow them to approve bills on Party-line votes, with a simple majority.
The Senate infamously passed Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 via budget reconciliation.
Early priorities will be border security and reviving the tax cuts passed during Trump's first term. The president-elect wants the bill to pass the House and Senate and be on his desk by May, just outside his first 100 days in office.
While incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (S.D.) is prepared to use the process to pass two bills, Johnson may want it all done in one shot. Thune has detailed a potential two-part strategy that would have senators working on an initial legislative package - energy, border security and defense priorities - that could be approved in the first 30 days of the new regime.
Next, Thune explained that the senators would turn to tax cuts - reviving the expiring tax cuts from President Trump's first term - which is expected to take longer, dragging into the year. Congress has not passed two reconciliation bills in one year since 1997. Republicans aren´t ready to eliminate the filibuster, which will make it harder to win some votes in the new 53-47 Senate.
The new Congress convened Friday when lawmakers were sworn into office, and the Senate expects to quickly begin holding confirmation hearings for Trump´s top Cabinet nominees.
Republicans have had difficulty uniting around the details of their agenda, even when they control the levers of government in Washington. But already fissures are developing over various tax and spending cuts, and broader policies such as President Trump's plans for mass deportations of immigrants.
Trump faced the first major test of his influence over Republicans in the House in a chaotic few days that narrowly avoided a government shutdown. But it was not a test that Trump passed with flying colors. Although he was handed a resounding mandate by voters on November 5 - ultra-conservative Republicans rejected his Elon Musk-backed demand to lift the debt ceiling.
Thirty-eight fiscal conservatives defected on Thursday night despite Trump's loud protestations on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Then, hours before the deadline on Saturday morning, Congress passed a deal to keep the government funded through February - without lifting the debt ceiling.
Republicans by and large support Trump's plan to secure the border, but many are wedded to cutting fiscal spending and not adding to the trillions of dollars of debt the Fascist Police States of Amerika (FPSA) has built.
The interest payments on the country's debts now exceed the entire defense budget.
With the GOP's margin in the House slimming down to at least a 220-215 majority - assuming all of Trump's Cabinet picks are confirmed and Republicans replace them in special elections - he will need to unify the Party to get his border plans passed.