Whereas the high-stakes battle to steer the Home of Representatives is over, Speaker Mike Johnson’s politically perilous 12 months is simply starting.
Profitable the speaker’s gavel was no simple feat contemplating Johnson, R-La., had no Democratic help and will solely lose one fellow Republican, due to the Home GOP’s razor-thin majority.
All Home Republicans apart from Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., voted for Johnson on Friday afternoon. Two GOP lawmakers who had initially voted for somebody aside from Johnson, Reps. Keith Self, R-Texas, and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., had been ultimately persuaded to modify their votes after talking with Johnson and President-elect Trump.
Johnson should navigate a equally slim margin over the following few months as he helps perform what President-elect Donald Trump promised could be a really lively first 100 days of his new administration.
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Home Speaker Mike Johnson is pictured in entrance of the U.S. Capitol. (Getty Photographs/AP)
“There’s a variety of expectations and potential pitfalls,” Marc Brief, who served as director of legislative affairs throughout the first Trump administration, informed Fox Information Digital in an interview late final month.
Simply the primary half of 2025 alone is predicted to see at the very least three separate fiscal fights.
Johnson, in the meantime, is about to lose two Home Republicans – Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Mike Waltz of Florida. Each members are becoming a member of the Trump administration on the finish of this month.
It’ll scale back his Home GOP majority to only 217 seats, in comparison with 215 for Democrats, which implies Republicans might want to vote in lock-step to go any payments on a party-line vote.
Particular elections to interchange Waltz and retired Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., are set for April. An election to interchange Stefanik has not but been set.
In the meantime, Republicans are gunning to go two huge conservative coverage and spending overhauls by way of a course of known as “reconciliation,” which lowers the brink for passage within the Senate from 60 votes to a easy majority for sure budgetary points.
Each Republicans and Democrats have tried to make use of reconciliation to go vital fiscal coverage modifications that the opposite facet usually opposes, which means it takes extraordinary ranges of intra-party cooperation in each the Home and Senate.
Pictured are President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for his subsequent Nationwide Safety Advisor, Michael Waltz (left), and subsequent U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik (proper).
“There’s large expectations on funds reconciliation, and that’s actually arduous, even once you’ve obtained vast margins. To suppose you’re going to do it twice in a 12 months with these margins, I feel is an enormously excessive expectation that appears to be unreasonable,” Brief informed Fox Information Digital.
“And add onto that one other funding invoice in three months, plus a debt ceiling battle.”
Together with reconciliation payments – that are unlikely to get a lot, if any, Democratic help – Republicans may even need to grapple with the federal government funding deadline they only punted to March 14.
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Home and Senate lawmakers handed a short-term extension of fiscal 12 months (FY) 2024’s authorities funding ranges in December to offer negotiators extra time to hash out the remainder of FY 2025.
Congress will threat plunging the federal government right into a partial shutdown if the Home and Senate doesn’t go one other funding extension or set new priorities for the rest of FY 2025 by then.
The subsequent authorities funding deadline will come on the finish of the fiscal 12 months on Sept. 30.
That’s not all Johnson should give attention to throughout these months, nevertheless.
President-elect Donald Trump seems to be on throughout Turning Level USA’s AmericaFest on the Phoenix Conference Middle on Dec. 22, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Photographs)
A bipartisan settlement struck in 2023 suspended the U.S. debt restrict by January 2025 – after which the Treasury Division will likely be pressured to take “extraordinary measures” to keep away from a nationwide credit score default.
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The debt restrict refers to how a lot debt the U.S. authorities can accrue whereas making expenditures it has already dedicated to. As of Christmas Eve, the nationwide debt — which measures what the U.S. owes its collectors — fell to $36,161,621,015,445.57, in accordance with the newest numbers revealed by the Treasury Division.
Elevating the debt restrict can be historically a fraught political battle, with each Republicans and Democrats searching for any attainable leverage to connect their very own coverage objectives to the negotiations.
A latest mannequin produced by the Financial Coverage Innovation Middle (EPIC) initiatives the Treasury’s “extraordinary measures” will carry the U.S. by mid-June or earlier, giving Congress doubtlessly six months to behave.
