Republicans in the US Congress are considering trying to pass president-elect Donald Trump's legislative agenda by voting first on a filibuster-proof budget package that revises energy policy, then taking up a separate tax cut bill later in 2025.
The two-part strategy, floated by incoming US Senate majority leader John Thune (R-South Dakota), could deliver Trump an early win by putting immigration, border security and energy policy changes into a single budget bill that could pass early next year without Democratic support. Republicans would then have more time to debate a separate — and likely more complex — budget package that would focus on extending a tax package expected to cost more than $4 trillion over 10 years.
The legislative strategy is a "possibility" floated among Senate Republicans for achieving Trump's legislative goals on "energy dominance," the border, national security and extending tax cuts, Thune said in an interview with Fox News this week. Thune said he was still having conversations with House Republicans and Trump's team on what strategy to pursue.
Republicans plan to use a process called budget reconciliation to advance most of Trump's legislative goals, which would avoid a Democratic filibuster but restrict the scope of policy changes to those that directly affect the budget. But some Republicans worry the potential two-part strategy could fracture the caucus and cause some key policies getting dropped, spurring a debate among Republicans over how to move forward.
"We have a menu of options in front of us," US House speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said this week in an interview with Fox News. "Leader Thune and I were talking as recently as within the last hour about the priority of how we do it and in what sequence."
Republicans have yet to decide what changes they will make to the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes hundreds of billions of dollars of tax credits for wind, solar, electric vehicles, battery manufacturing, carbon capture and clean hydrogen. A group of 18 House Republicans in August said they opposed a "full repeal" of the 2022 law. Republicans next year will start with only a 220-215 majority in the House, which will then drop to 217-215 once two Republicans join the Trump administration and representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) resigns.
