Adopting a budget resolution was a months-long slog for congressional Republicans and that was the easy part. Passing a reconciliation bill is going to be much, much harder.
“I’m very concerned,” Sen. Kevin Cramer said. “When you look at this little family squabble over something that is as basic as just starting the process, you do sort of wonder if there are people who are actually serious about a successful conclusion.”
Budget resolutions are only a means to an end: passing it unlocks the budget reconciliation process, allowing Republicans to bypass a Senate filibuster and pass much of President Donald Trump’s most ambitious policy agenda with a simple majority vote. Budget resolutions outline how much money can be spent, while reconciliation determines what the money is spent on.
And yet, it took congressional Republicans three-and-a-half months of negotiations, frustrations and back-and-forths between leadership to land on a matching budget resolution. Adopting that proposal required strong-arming from Trump, who warned House Republicans to “close their eyes and stop grandstanding.”
The “thing about a board of directors of 535 people” is “you don’t get to all be the chairman,” Cramer added.
Just this week, Speaker Mike Johnson spent days haggling with conservative holdouts. Senate Majority Leader John Thune was subjected to a sitdown with House Freedom Caucus members. And while the House narrowly succeeded in adopting its budget resolution, two Republicans still voted against the measure as both the House and Senate were itching to leave on a two-week recess.
When Congress returns, it’ll be time for the actual reconciliation negotiations. Republicans say they expect months of jockeying over how spending — or spending cuts — are prioritized. There’s also the matter of the Senate parliamentarian, who determines whether a given reconciliation package abides by the rules, which require all measures included be related to the federal budget.
“We’re all eager to actually get into the actual policy details,” Sen. James Lankford said ahead of the House adopting the resolution. “That is the harder part. This is the easy part, supposedly.”
“I’ve described this as, this is where to put the ladder against the house so we can get on to the leaky roof,” he added. “It doesn’t matter. Just put the ladder anywhere. The goal is to get on the leaky roof and start fixing that.”
While timelines in Congress are always ambitious, some Republicans outlined theirs: Sen. Mike Rounds said he’d like to see reconciliation done by the end of June, noting the pending debt ceiling deadline is expected to hit around that time. Lankford said he’d like it to be done by July, also pointing to the debt limit and the need to give the Internal Revenue Service “two quarters” to construct rules and guidance for the likely tax cuts included in the bill.
Trump’s 90-day pause on tariffs is also set to expire in July, meaning it could be a very chaotic few weeks for Republicans.
Sen. Thom Tillis said he expects it’ll take “weeks or months before we actually get something to the president’s desk, in my estimation.” Sen. Tommy Tuberville said he hasn’t talked to Trump specifically about timelines, but he expects the president wants the bill done “as quickly as possible.”
That sentiment was echoed by Senate GOP leadership.
“I want to get this done as soon as possible. I don’t want to wait for deadlines on things,” Senate GOP Whip John Barrasso said. “I want to work on it, and we’ll have our staff working on it straight through over the Easter recess.”
Republicans — including Trump — are hopeful for the ultimate reconciliation package to include a slew of policy provisions on border security, energy and taxes. There are also broad ambitions to cut federal spending, though it’s unclear how Senate and House Republicans will come to an exact agreement on how much to cut. House conservatives are hoping for far higher numbers than many Senate Republicans would like.
Thune on Thursday said Senate Republicans’ “ambition” is to be aligned with the House on spending cuts. Some House conservatives were still hesitant to believe him — and on the flip side, some Senate Republicans are anxious about being pressed for ultra-high cutbacks.
Thune told reporters shortly after the House adopted the budget resolution that “we have folks on both sides of that issue” and “we’ll have to sort it out.”
“This is going to be hard,” Tuberville said. But, he added, “We’ve got to have cuts.” He doesn’t expect DOGE’s federal spending cuts will be enough in the immediate term, though he thinks they’ll “make a lot of difference in the long run.”
If Republicans are successful in putting a package together, it would be permitted to pass through the Senate on only a simple-majority threshold, instead of the 60-vote threshold typically needed to break a filibuster.
“It’ll be harder because it’s more substantive,” Sen. John Kenendy said. Rounds said it’s simply “no question” that reconciliation negotiations will be tough.
Still, Republicans aren’t unique in their struggle to speedily pass a reconciliation bill. During the Biden administration, congressional Democrats sought to pass the “Build Back Better” bill, which eventually became the “Inflation Reduction Act,” as their own reconciliation package. It took months, with moderate holdouts in the party center paring down the package significantly.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who led his caucus through those negotiations, forecasted Republicans will have trouble.
“The struggles Republicans have faced so far are only a glimmer of what’s to come,” Schumer said. “If they had it hard on the budget resolution, imagine how hard it’s going to be on reconciliation with all their contradictory promises clashing with each other.”
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Ursula Perano is a reporter at NOTUS.