Congress returns from the two-week Easter Recess on Monday after having passed a unified Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Budget Resolution with reconciliation instructions, thus unlocking the expedited process for considering an extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and other Republican policy priorities (e.g., Trump campaign tax pledges, border security, domestic energy production, increased defense spending, etc.) with a party-line simple majority vote.
The House is moving first, as instructed committees will begin markups as soon as this coming week. Please find below an outlook for the coming work period. A primer on the reconciliation process, courtesy of the House Budget Committee, can be found here.
HOUSE
The House returns on Monday for a scheduled four-week legislative session, with the Memorial Day Recess (week of May 26) acting as a backstop for its primary goal of the month: passing reconciliation legislation. Leadership plans to have each of the 11 instructed committees mark up their portions of the bill during the work period. This is an ambitious timeline and-given the House’s higher deficit reduction instructions-Leadership will be walking a political tightrope between its moderate Members and its deficit hawks. The current planned schedule of House markups is as follows, along with the corresponding House instructions:
- Week of April 28. Armed Services Committee (+$100 billion, though authorizers are targeting a bicameral $150 billion defense spending agreement consistent with the Senate instruction), Education and Workforce Committee (-$330 billion), Financial Services Committee (-$1 billion), Homeland Security Committee (+$90 billion), Judiciary Committee (+$110 billion), Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (-$10 billion), Oversight and Government Reform Committee (-$50 billion)
- Week of May 5. Agriculture Committee (-$230 billion), Energy and Commerce Committee (-$880 billion), Natural Resources Committee (-$1 billion), Ways and Means Committee (up to +$4.5 trillion)
- Week of May 12. Budget Committee assembles reconciliation package without amendment
- Week of May 19. House floor consideration of budget reconciliation package
Meanwhile, the House is scheduled to consider several unrelated measures on the floor this work period beginning with five resolutions of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) this coming week. The House also has scheduled several law enforcement bills to coincide with National Police Week at the beginning of May. Finally, there are a number of items that will draw considerable attention both on and off the floor, including:
Rescissions Package. The House is expected to consider the first in a potential series of spending recissions packages from the President this month. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will formally submit a rescissions request to Congress next week (in the form of a special message), which will both trigger a 45-day clock for Congress to act on the package and allow the Administration to withhold the corresponding funds for the same period. While the rescissions package is not amendable on the House or Senate floors, Leadership can choose to omit certain rescissions requests from their legislation if they do not have the votes to pass the bill. In 2018, President Trump’s rescissions package targeting $15 billion in budget authority passed the Republican House but narrowly failed in the Senate. The White House and Leadership are determined to avoid the same fate this year and have been coordinating for weeks on the initial rescissions package.
The forthcoming bill is expected to request the rescissions of $9.3 billion in budget authority at PBS, NPR, and USAID. From a Leadership perspective, passage of a recissions package is crucially important to maintain momentum for reconciliation as it will help put meat on the bone of some Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) work and perhaps help assuage-if only slightly-deficit hawks in the House.
The President’s Budget. In addition, the President’s “skinny” budget for FY26 is expected to be submitted in May, followed by testimony from Trump agency officials in the House and Senate Appropriations committees.
National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The House Armed Services Committee will also begin its process of marking up the annual NDAA.
SENATE
The Senate returns Monday with its primary focus also on reconciliation, though they will be moving at a slightly different pace. In addition, the Senate will consider nominations, CRA resolutions of disapproval, and additional legislation, as follows:
Ambassadorial Nominations. The work period begins with votes on four ambassadorial nominations, disposition of which will begin Monday and is expected to run through Tuesday. The Ambassadors receiving confirmation votes are David Perdue (PRC); Warren Stephens (UK/Northern Ireland); Thomas Barrack (Turkey); and Tilman Fertitta (Italy).
Additional Trump Nominations. There are about 30 additional Administration nominations pending on the Executive Calendar, with more to be reported in the coming weeks from various committees. Nearly all of the nominees are subject to up to two hours of post cloture debate, which means they move much faster than the Trump Cabinet nominations who were subject to up to 30 hours of debate. We expect the Senate to continue to march through nominations at a relatively rapid pace, with Leadership working closely with the White House on prioritization. Note: President Trump’s judicial nominations have not yet begun to be sent up to the Senate; when they do that will create an additional pipeline of activity for an already-crowded floor schedule.
CRA Activity. The timeline under which the Senate can consider resolutions of disapproval to repeal late-term Biden-era regulations (the “lookback window”) on an expedited basis is closing in the next few weeks. As such, the Senate will devote floor time over the coming two weeks to processing the final stretch of CRA resolutions. The five that are expected to be considered include two relating to DOE appliance standards (H.J.Res. 42, H.J.Res. 75); EPA tire manufacturing emissions standards (H.J.Res. 61); limitations on RVs in Glen Canyon Park in Utah (H.J.Res. 60); and EPA Major Source review under the Clean Air Act (S.J.Res. 31). The Senate GOP continues to consider the path forward to rescind California’s EPA Clean Air Act waivers, with potential activity this work period.
Reconciliation. Senate Republicans will meet with greater frequency and purpose as they make decisions relating to both Senate process as well as substance; those decisions will largely be made on a committee-by-committee basis with guidance from Leadership. These discussions, which are in addition to the regular Caucus lunches, could include one or more dedicated longer-form Caucus meetings. It remains possible that there could be legislative activity in committees prior to Memorial Day, though much will depend on the House’s progress. While some of the Senate’s 10 instructed committees will hold markups, others might opt not to do so. The Senate is planning to have its reconciliation package on the floor in June.
As noted above, we believe getting agreement on deficit reduction is the most difficult piece of the reconciliation puzzle to solve. The House’s and Senate’s instructions differ significantly, with the Senate setting easy-to-reach deficit reduction floors that will be exceeded, with $1 billion minimums for each of the following committees: Agriculture; Banking; Energy; EPW; and HELP. (Armed Services can spend up to $150 billion, while Homeland and Judiciary have up to $175 billion in border security funding. Senate Finance, which has both taxes and Medicaid in its purview, must limit its deficit increase to a net $1.5 trillion, judged against a current policy baseline).
Other Legislation. In addition to nominations and CRAs, we expect the Senate to use this work period to vote on legislation, likely beginning with the Wyden-Paul resolution to terminate the Trump Administration’s emergency declaration enabling tariffs on a wide range of imported goods (S.J.Res. 49). The Senate likely has the votes to pass this resolution (which requires only a simple majority), although it will not see further action in the House, making it a symbolic gesture.
It is possible the Senate could consider Sen. Hagerty’s GENIUS Act as soon as this work period. Despite Ranking Member Warren’s strong opposition, GENIUS was reported on a bipartisan basis from the Banking Committee by a vote of 18-6 in mid-March. There is also interest in moving a package of House-passed bipartisan bills tackling governmental waste, fraud, and abuse. The Senate will also consider the Administration’s forthcoming recissions package, though that vote could be delayed until June.
Look Ahead. The Trump Administration is also expected to release its “skinny” and long-form budgets in May, necessary before the Senate can move forward this summer on the annual NDAA, as well as begin work on annual appropriations measures. In addition, there remains interest in tackling issues including China/outbound investment, kids online safety/children’s privacy, FAA modernization, and farm policy, although action on these items is not imminent.
OUTLOOK/ANALYSIS. While the House and Senate have very different reconciliation instructions, we expect both chambers to be fairly well-coordinated and similar-though not exact-in the bills they mark up in their respective committees. Thus, we expect a conference committee to be needed to reconcile the differing packages, with a goal of House and Senate passage by the July Fourth Recess.
Ultimately, the looming debt limit “X date” will act as a deadline for Congress. Should Treasury signal that it risks default in the summer timeframe, Congress will have a natural incentive to act quickly given the debt ceiling increase ($4-5 trillion) expected to be included in budget reconciliation. This timeline could line up with the August recess which is a major forcing mechanism for Congress. Importantly, given that Congress used the FY25 Budget Resolution as its vehicle, September 30 is the date by which the instructions expire and cease to enjoy expedited procedures (i.e., simple majority vote in the Senate). Therefore there will be great pressure to enact legislation prior to the August recess.
At this point, Congress has defied skeptics and remained on track with its ambitious “one big, beautiful bill” strategy-thanks in large part to targeted whip efforts at key moments from the White House. This upcoming work period is when the hard decisions will need to be made to keep the process moving forward, setting up an inevitable confrontation between moderates and deficit hawks-with changes to entitlement programs like Medicaid and SNAP taking center stage-and political pressure increasing from all sides as bill text finally comes to light.
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