By Kevin Kosar January 13, 2025
Donald J. Trump does not take office for another week, but GOP legislators are trying to set him and their party up for success. Last week, they assembled and counted the states’ electoral votes to formally declare Trump and JD Vance the winners of November’s election. Now they are negotiating among themselves over how to use the reconciliation process to extend tax cuts, expand U.S. energy production, tighten the border, and enact various other GOP policies. They also are trying to sequence the Senate’s processing of Trump’s nominees, and move legislation demanded by various Republican members in the hopes of taming down intraparty dissent. Last week the House passed H.R. 29, the Laken Riley Act, and a few other bills in order to show voters they are serious about making good on their promises.
Republicans also are debating what they might do in response to a raft of recent executive actions by outgoing President Joe Biden. The House held a hearing about a Veterans Affairs Department initiative that goes beyond the plain letter of the law, and may draft legislation to reverse Biden’s memorandum preventing energy extraction from 625 million acres of coastal waters. Legislators also need to decide when to pass again the bipartisan S. 4199, the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved Act of 2024, which Biden vetoed.
Getting everyone in the GOP on the same page will not be easy, and Democrats are sure to do what they can to trip up their efforts. The next few months are going to be a real test of Republican’s competence to govern, and voters will be watching.
Republicans would be wise to pursue just one reconciliation bill
Politico reported that Speaker Mike Johnson has told House Republicans that Donald Trump now wants to pursue just one reconciliation bill this coming year rather than two. If that’s true (and secondhand reports of Trump’s opinions aren’t always borne out), it is a smart move. A one-bill strategy would recognize that last year’s election was very close and not the landslide Republicans have been spinning up in their imaginations.
The Senate and House are in session this week.
The Federal Budget: Serious Issues and Unserious Politics
Kevin R. Kosar | UnderstandingCongress.org
America has a $37 trillion debt and there are no signs that the nation’s finances are going to improve. Yet, amidst all this bad news about federal finances what do we see? Unserious politics, mostly. Last year’s election featured politicians from both parties competing for the public’s vote by dangling fiscally reckless policies as carrots.
Degraded Deliberation in the U.S. House
Philip Wallach | Civitas Institute
The House of Representatives is mainly adrift because of the difficulties Republicans had in electing a Speaker in January 2023 and the consequences of that struggle for the House Rules Committee. Understanding the House’s current malaise requires understanding the degraded state of its deliberations, which in turn requires digging into the nitty-gritty of how it considers bills.
House Committee Tries to Rein in a VA Loan Program
Kevin R. Kosar | Washington Examiner
The House Committee on Veterans Affairs met recently to discuss the topic of regulation and to pick a bone with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “It is the fundamental duty of this committee,” Chairman Mike Bost (R-IL) said in December 2024, “to make sure that no matter who is in the White House, the administration that’s in charge is properly carrying out the laws to serve veterans in a way that Congress intended.”
What Has Become of the United States Senate and Can It Be Revived? (with Anthony Madonna)
Kevin R. Kosar | Understanding Congress podcast
Kevin Kosar chats with Professor Tony Madonna about the sorry state of the Senate and how it can return to being the place where the nation’s biggest challenges are debated and addressed.
America at 250: Slavery, Equality, and the American Revolution February 10, 2025 | 2:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m.
“In American parlance, saying that some task is simple often involves saying, ‘It’s not rocket science.’ Radically changing government, as Musk promises to do, is not rocket science. It is harder.”
—George Will, Washington Post
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