Senate Republicans scored major wins during the first ten weeks of the 119th Congress, but the bulk of Trump’s legislative agenda is still awaiting passage.
GOP senators have moved quickly to confirm 21 cabinet nominees, pass legislation to aid President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts, roll back regulations issued by former President Joe Biden and put Democrats on the record for opposing GOP efforts to protect women’s sports and the unborn. Though Senate Republicans are touting the conference’s “historic first two months” during the longest continuous session in more than a decade, many GOP lawmakers acknowledge they have much more work to do to pass the president’s first-year legislative agenda.
The majority of Trump’s first-year legislative priorities, including a permanent extension of his signature 2017 tax cuts, is not expected to be passed until later in the year as the House and Senate continue to iron out the details. Failure to extend the tax cuts would result in a tax increase for most U.S. households in 2026.
Congressional Republicans are in the beginning stage of the budget reconciliation process, which allows the Senate to pass the president’s spending and tax priorities by a simple majority vote, circumventing Senate Democrats’ opposition.
GOP lawmakers are aiming to provide additional funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to fast-track the president’s deportation agenda, boost defense spending and increase oil and gas leases in a budget reconciliation package this year. They are also working to enact the president’s sweeping tax priorities, which include no taxes on tips, overtime pay or Social Security benefits, in addition to raising the state and local tax deduction cap in the budget bill.
“We are rolling up our sleeves and preparing to follow through on reconciliation, on securing the border, on rebuilding the military, on unleashing energy and extending the 2017 tax cuts and making them bigger and bolder,” Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “All of those are a clear mandate.”
“If you had to give any grade, you’d probably give the grade of incomplete, because the bulk of our work is still ahead of us,” Cruz continued.
GOP senators have taken a victory lap on the record confirmation pace of Trump’s cabinet nominees, which outpaced both the Biden administration and first Trump administration.
The Senate has sent several pieces of legislation to the president’s desk, including the Trump-backed government funding bill that Senate Republicans effectively pressured Senate Democrats to advance during the cloture vote, averting a partial government shutdown. Senate Republicans also successfully repealed the Biden Environmental Protection Agency’s natural gas tax, which Trump signed into law Monday.
“Promises made, promises kept,” Republican Alabama Sen. Katie Britt told the DCNF. “Every day we continue to chip away at the things that we promised the American people.”
Republican Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno told the DCNF he would give Senate Republicans a grade of A+ for a “historic first two months” during which GOP senators took action on border security and inflation, which Moreno said were the top two issues of the 2024 electoral cycle.
Just hours after the president’s inauguration on Jan. 20, GOP senators passed the Laken Riley Act, requiring illegal migrants to be detained for committing an array of criminal offenses, with just 12 Senate Democrats voting in favor.
Moreno also credited the Senate GOP for taking action to reduce inflation, including repealing Biden-era regulations that contributed to higher energy prices through the Congressional Review Act. The rate of inflation slowed in February to 2.8%, according to the Consumer Price Index, which measures the price of everyday goods.
“Democrats are a complete, abject disaster right now, so we’re kicking their ass,” Moreno added.
Senate Democrats’ approval rating is nearing record lows and the government funding fight exposed a jarring split between Senate Democratic leadership and the conference over whether to vote for the GOP spending bill or potentially suffer the blame for causing a government shutdown. GOP senators have since been taunting their colleagues with the popular refrain “Democrats in disarray.”
Moreover, the Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation to permanently classify fentanyl analogues as Schedule 1 drugs in addition to approving the GOP spending measure on Friday.
Curtailing the flow of illicit drugs into the U.S. was a day-one priority for Trump on his return to the White House, as he repeatedly emphasized that fentanyl alone has killed “tens of thousands of Americans each year.”
“The HALT Fentanyl Act will help equip law enforcement with the resources needed to crack down on traffickers and keep these deadly substances off the streets once and for all,” Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito wrote in a statement following the vote.
Senate Democrats, however, managed to filibuster GOP senators’ attempts to pass legislation to bar transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, sanction International Criminal Court officials and protect babies born-alive from botched abortions during the first ten weeks of session. Nearly all Democratic senators have previously voted to abolish the Senate procedural rule requiring most legislation to win the support of 60 senators to clear a cloture vote, and many have campaigned on the issue.
Former Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat turned independent, torched her former colleagues for their flip-flop on the filibuster in a series of social media posts on Saturday and Sunday, writing, “the hypocrisy is the point,” in a post on X.
“The party that mere months ago, literally, was gleefully making plans to destroy the filibuster is now using the filibuster left and right,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on the Senate floor on March 10.
Once GOP senators return to Washington from the recess break on Monday, the conference will be looking to undergo the next stage of the budget reconciliation process, which is passing an identical budget resolution with the House to unlock a future bill that will constitute the president’s tax and spending priorities.
The negotiations between both chambers could be a months-long process, and a reconciliation bill might not be finished until the summer.
“You can sum up the first ten weeks of the Republican-led Senate in three words: Fast, forceful, and effective,” Barrasso said on the Senate floor on March 11. “We aren’t wasting time. We are just getting started.”
Andi Shae Napier contributed to this report.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Adam Michael Szuscik/Unsplash)
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