Congress is back after a nice two-week Easter break, and boy do they have a lot of work to do if they wanna pass President Trump’s America First agenda. The president’s plan looks a lot like the Project 2025 agenda from the super-conservative Heritage Foundation, which he totally pretended to dislike during the campaign.
Before taking off for the break, Congress managed to pass a budget resolution that Trump signed. It was like the first big step in getting “The One Beautiful Bill” that Trump and House Speaker Johnson keep yapping about to become a reality. But the Senate is having some serious issues when it comes to all the parliamentary politics stuff.
Passing the resolution was a big win for the House speaker and the start of the budget reconciliation process. People thought Johnson couldn’t keep all his Republicans in line. There’s only a 3-vote majority in the House, with 220 Republicans and 213 Democrats (and 2 empty seats). The margins are so slim that Trump had to backpedal on his nomination of Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) as UN Ambassador.
Even though they got the budget resolution passed, getting to a final reconciliation bill is gonna be a long road. There are still some major differences among the Republicans in the two chambers. And they’re gonna have to get a little sneaky to make things work, starting with how the Senate decided to crunch the numbers for the resolution.
Instead of using real budget figures, the Senate conveniently decided that giving the wealthy more tax credits wouldn’t cost a thing under a “current policy baseline.” It helped them pass the resolution, but it’s not gonna sit well with Republican conservatives or moderates when it’s time to pass the final bill.
The Senate Parliamentarian might not be too happy with the trickery either. This budget reconciliation process lets the Senate avoid filibusters and pass laws with a simple majority. But you need a super-majority of 60 votes to squash a filibuster.
The House budget hawks went along with the speaker, but there have been a lot of promises made about cuts that probably won’t happen. Like when Trump swore up and down that Medicaid and Medicare benefits wouldn’t get slashed. But the budget resolution tells the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut $880 billion in deficits over the next 10 years, which likely means cuts to Medicaid and Medicare. Big ones.
Medicare and Medicaid might be the biggest pots of money to fund Trump’s tax breaks. But there are other options, like getting cash from the IRA and other Biden climate programs. The state of the economy is gonna play a big role in what Congress decides to do, especially with the potential for a recession looming.
The red states, which tend to have the most poor folks, are the ones that could get hit the hardest. Around 30% of West Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana are on Medicaid, with another 18 to 25% on Medicare. And ironically, those red states are the ones that have benefitted the most from the IRA programs that Trump can’t stand.
Trump’s tariffs and other strategies are starting to lose him support, with people worried about a possible recession. On his 100th day back in office, he’s gonna try to distract from the economy by talking about cutting government and immigration. But it might not be the smoothest spin to pull off.
And that’s a wrap for now. Stay tuned for more updates from Washington.
