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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Benton, talks briefly to reporters just before a vote on an interim spending bill to prevent a government shutdown after President-elect Donald Trump abruptly rejected a bipartisan plan yesterday, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. The vote failed to pass.
Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans haven’t been specific, but they certainly have been prolific with their repeated promises of passing sweeping legislation to install conservative solutions to all sorts of issues during the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency. As the GOP leadership has repeatedly noted, Republicans are in charge of all three levers of power, which should greatly simplify moving their agenda into law quickly. True, the new political paradigm gives Republicans the power.
But GOP majorities are so slender that getting those bills to Trump’s desk may not be that easy. House Republicans hold a 219-215 majority and 53 of the 100 seats in the Senate. Plus, the Republicans span a wide ideological spectrum and often disagree with each other.
Then events just happen and create unexpected hurdles. Funeral arrangements for former President Jimmy Carter, for instance, possibly could stall the ceremony President Joe Biden had planned for 10 a.m.
Monday to sign the Social Security Fairness Act, which revokes provisions that limited retirement benefits for public service workers whose state and local employers had not contributed to the Social Security system. The White House still hasn’t confirmed if the ceremony is still on, or when, though Biden will still sign the bill — perhaps without the fanfare. Also, long before the House can start moving bills, the lower chamber will almost immediately have to deal with the “debt limit,” which curtails the amount of money the federal government can borrow to pay its bills.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin announced late last month that Congress is going to have to act as early as Jan. 14 on the $36.2 trillion debt limit or the United States will have to start picking and choosing which bills to pay.
Economists predict that a federal government default would weaken economies around the world. In December, Trump blew up the first deal to keep the government from shutting down with a demand, in part, that the agreement raise the debt ceiling on "Biden’s watch.” U.
S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Benton, pulled the Republican-Democratic compromise and ran with a resolution Trump wanted. But Republicans have long opposed raising the debt ceiling without also cutting spending.
That bill failed with 38 Republicans voted “nay.” Johnson then removed the debt limitation bit, and the resolution to keep the government from closing passed easily about a half hour after the deadline. The House is going to have to raise or remove the debt limit pretty much immediately in January.
And Republican leadership is going to need Democratic help to do so. In the past, teaming up with Democrats has infuriated the most conservative of Republicans. The deal approved shortly after midnight on Dec.
21 included $100 billion for federal disaster programs, including $29 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Relief Fund. The measure also appropriated $10 billion to help farmers shore up their finances to get loans for spring planting if they have been unable to turn a profit because of rising costs and decreasing prices. Of course, the main goal of the stopgap measure is to allow government to continue operating at existing levels of spending until March 14.
On that date, 10 weeks from now, Congress will either have to agree on how much executive agencies can spend for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, which they haven’t done so far, or once again pass a resolution to further postpone making decisions. As this fiscal year ends in nine months, on Sept.
30, 2025, Congress at some point is going to have to focus on the next fiscal year. While trying to deal with these time-consuming and detail-oriented issues, House leaders are wanting to move forward with legislation to pass border security, extend tax cuts, and open up energy exploration and production. House Republican leaders wrote in a New Year’s Day op-ed: “As the Republican leadership in Congress, we have prepared an aggressive plan to remove any roadblocks and provide a glidepath for President Trump’s reforms and policy agenda.
He will use his executive authority to quickly triage many of the crises left by the Biden administration, but President Trump’s legacy, and transformational change, must be cemented by Congress.”.
