WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump said on Jan. 6 that he prefers to use one bill to pass his big agenda items but is open to alternative approaches.
“My preference is one big, as I say, one big, beautiful bill. Now, to do that takes longer. You know, to submit it takes longer, actually. But, so it’s a longer process. I would say I’d live with that. I believe we’d get, I don’t know, to me, it just is cleaner, it’s cleaner. It’s nicer,” he said.
Trump said he would defer to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) as to what track Congress takes.
“We have a lot of respect for Sen. Thune, as you know. He may have a little bit of a different view of it. I heard other senators yesterday, including [Sen.] Lindsey [Graham], talking about it,” he said.
“They’d prefer it the other way. So I’m open to either way as long as we get something passed as quickly as possible.”
Many of the 2017 tax cuts, including the personal income tax rates, expire this year. If they are not extended, the personal income tax brackets would revert to the levels that existed before the signature legislation.
Trump’s agenda in Congress would largely pass through a mechanism called reconciliation. This would allow Republicans to circumvent the filibuster, which requires 60 votes for most legislation to proceed in the Senate. Reconciliation bills, which allow the House and Senate to pass legislation with simple majorities, can include only measures related to taxing, spending, and the national debt.
The GOP will have three reconciliation bills that it can pass, although it could technically divide the taxing, spending, and national debt measures into multiple bills as long as the three categories do not overlap. The first chance is courtesy of Congress not passing a budget bill for the 2025 fiscal year, while the remaining two will be for the 2026 and 2027 fiscal years, respectively.
In addition to addressing taxes, border security, and energy, reconciliation could raise the debt ceiling.
In 2023, the GOP-controlled House passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act to raise the debt ceiling while implementing fiscal and other reforms. It was not the final bill raising the threshold, as that version was a result of negotiations between former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and President Joe Biden.
Trump wanted the debt ceiling raised in December 2024 as part of the effort to prevent a government shutdown.
However, Congress passed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through March 14, and it did not include an increase in the debt ceiling.
