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Republicans are preparing to cut taxes, slash spending and slow immigration in a broad agenda that will require unifying an unruly party behind dozens of complicated policy choices. For now, though, they are struggling with a more prosaic decision: whether to cram their policy goals into one bill or split them into two.
It is a seemingly technical question that reveals a fundamental divide among Republicans about whether to prioritize a wide-ranging crackdown on immigration or cutting taxes, previewing what could be months of intramural policy debate.
Some Republicans have argued that they should pass two bills in order to quickly push through legislation focused on immigration at the southern border, a key campaign promise for Mr. Trump and his party’s candidates. But Republicans devoted to lowering taxes have pressed for one mammoth bill to ensure that tax cuts are not left on the cutting-room floor.
President-elect Donald J. Trump was set to meet with Republican senators in Washington on Wednesday, with those lawmakers hoping for clarity on his preferred strategy. He has waffled between the two ideas, prolonging the dispute.
“…one big beautiful bill, I always have and always will, but if two is more certain, it does go a little bit quicker because you can do the immigration stuff early,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference on Tuesday.
Republicans are planning to ram the partisan fiscal package through the Senate over the opposition of Democrats using a process called reconciliation, which allows them to steer clear of a filibuster and pass bills with a simple majority vote.
There’s serious risk in having multiple bills that have to pass to get your agenda through,” Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the majority leader, said. “When you know you’ve got a lot of people that want this first package, if you only put certain things in the first package, they can vote no on the second and you lose the whole second package. That would be devastating.”
Adding to the urgency of achieving their policy goals, Republicans are facing a political disaster should they fail to deliver. Many of the tax cuts they put into place in 2017, the last time Mr. Trump was president, expire at the end of the year. That means that taxes on most Americans could go up if Congress does not pass a tax bill this year.
Passing tax cuts can take time, though. While much of the Republican tax agenda involves continuing measures the party passed in 2017, Mr. Trump and other Republicans have floated additional ideas, including no taxes on tips and new incentives for corporations to manufacture in the United States. Ideas like that could take months to formulate into workable policy.
Then there is the gigantic cost. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that simply extending the 2017 tax cuts would cost more than $4 trillion over a decade — a price tag that would grow if other tax cuts, like Mr. Trump’s proposal to not tax overtime pay, are included.
The complexity of pulling together a tax bill that can secure the necessary votes has some Republicans hoping to hold off until later in the year and first charge ahead with a smaller bill focused on immigration, energy and military issues.
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