Republicans are projecting confidence about their first 100 days in Congress come 2025, but the path to delivering on their promises faces significant procedural and political hurdles that could slow or derail their ambitious agenda.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been meeting with Senate Republicans since the beginning of December to coordinate strategy, telling Fox News, “We’re absolutely convinced that we can keep those [campaign] promises. We’re excited to do it. There’s a real esprit de corps among the Republicans in Congress right now.”
The GOP’s priorities include extending more than $4 trillion in expiring individual income tax cuts, allocating up to $120 billion for border security including wall construction and deportation infrastructure, and boosting defense spending. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) emphasized their coordination with the incoming administration, noting, “The Trump administration and Trump officials in the transition team have been part of those conversations. Because we want to make sure the day we start in January, President Trump’s policies are going to be front and center.”
However, with Republicans holding just 53 Senate seats and a razor-thin House majority of 220-215, the party’s grip on power leaves little room for dissent. “Every senator, every member of the House of Representatives in the Republican caucus is going to be essential to them, and so they will have to worry about every different political tug that they have in their caucus,” explained one Democratic Capitol Hill veteran of past budget fights.
The GOP’s main legislative vehicle will be budget reconciliation, a complex process that allows certain bills to pass the Senate with a simple majority instead of the usual 60-vote threshold due to the filibuster. But reconciliation comes with its own set of challenges and restrictions.
Bill Hoagland, a former Republican budget staffer who now heads the Bipartisan Policy Center, points to the first major hurdle: “The speaker has a real hurdle here, I think, just getting a budget resolution passed.”
The process requires Republicans to pass budget resolutions that will project federal debt levels reaching $50 trillion by the mid-2030s – numbers that could make fiscal conservatives balk. Each budget can generate up to three separate bills covering taxes, spending, and debt limits, potentially giving Republicans six opportunities for major legislation if they pass two budgets.
A critical gatekeeper in this process is Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, whose rulings on what can be included in reconciliation bills could make or break Republican priorities. MacDonough’s role gained particular attention after she directed her staff to protect electoral vote boxes during the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. As Hoagland noted, “If it wasn’t for her and her staff on Jan. 6, 2021, who grabbed those boxes and got them off the Senate floor, I don’t know where we would be today.”
The final hurdle for any reconciliation bill is the Senate’s notorious “vote-a-rama” – a marathon voting session where any senator can offer amendments. These sessions can stretch for nearly 24 hours, testing both physical endurance and party unity. In 2022, one such session ran from 5:11 p.m. until 3:04 p.m. the following day.
Recent history shows the challenges of passing major legislation through reconciliation. The process was used for Obamacare in 2010, Trump’s tax cuts in 2017, Biden’s American Rescue Plan in 2021, and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. In contrast, recent bipartisan achievements like the CHIPS Act and infrastructure bill passed through regular order with significant cross-party support.
Hoagland, reflecting on his years as a Senate GOP aide, noted the shift away from bipartisanship: “When I go back and think about the years that I was up there and look at the votes, it was tough, but there were Republicans and Democrats that voted together on some of these big issues.” But now, he observed, “it’s not there.”