Jan. 7, 2025, 2:44 p.m.
It’s official—Donald Trump will be the next president. Congress certified the election with no interruptions or problems. Next stop: inauguration. But we already have a peek at what is coming next. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson are discussing plans to move forward with a mega-bill combining many of the administration’s big-ticket goals.
This bill would be a wild, unwieldy piece of legislation covering immigration, taxes, energy, and much more. The massive breadth of the bill is strategic: Johnson and Trump think that if they pack so much big-picture stuff that congressional Republicans want into it, rank-and-file members will be less likely to oppose it over small-bore nitpicks. If the House can pass it, the thinking goes, the Senate can then circumvent the filibuster and pass it on a party-line vote under reconciliation rules.
This plan is ambitious on two fronts. First, there is no guarantee that individual Republican legislators will go along with it. We’ve seen legislators balk at voting for important bills over seemingly small-potatoes issues many times—and there's always the chance that Elon Musk posts against it on social media. The latter is less likely to happen on a Trump agenda bill unless Musk and Trump have a falling out, but the House Freedom Caucus is likely to remain a thorn in Johnson’s (and Trump’s) side.
There was no better illustration of this problem than last week’s election for speaker. While Johnson technically won on the first vote, six members refused to answer when their names were called, and another three members voted for someone else. All but one of these nine eventually voted for Johnson, including two of the three who had initially voted for someone else, but the message was clear: Not all Republican House members are guaranteed to fall in line.
In voting for a mega-bill, House leaders can afford only two defections as they try to keep 220 people (or fewer, given current and future vacancies) in line.
On the positive side for Republicans, Trump demonstrated his continuing influence when he pulled the detractors over the line with last-minute phone calls on Johnson's behalf. Undoubtedly, he would do the same for a GOP mega-bill. It’s also safe to assume that the voters who elected Trump generally would like the representatives they voted for to enact Trump’s agenda, so the pressure of constituent expectations could weigh on any would-be defectors.
Zooming out, we have the second problem of political time. The Trump administration wants to pass this package in the first 100 days, but a mega-bill takes mega-time to write and negotiate. It likely would not be ready for voting until late spring. Negotiations and bickering could easily bleed into summer and fall, particularly if it ends up broken into two bills.
Just because the bill passes doesn’t mean voters immediately rejoice. It will take some time for voters to begin seeing and feeling any impact the bill has on their daily lives. The Biden administration ran into this challenge with the large legislation Democrats passed in 2021 and 2022, with voters not seeing large changes to infrastructure or more jobs created through increased manufacturing. Any big action on immigration will take time to plan and additional miles of border barriers will take time to construct. Tax cuts might not go into place immediately. Changes to energy policy will take time to implement.
Some changes are easier than others, but most of what a bill like this would do has to filter through the federal bureaucracy, which often moves at the pace of curing cement. All told, it could easily be 18 months to two years before the provisions of the bill are fully in place, potentially longer.
Last week, I gave a set of five numbers that will determine how well Trump’s first year goes. This bill would impact three of them: congressional productivity, action on immigration, and action on alleviating cost-of-living issues. Trump can take executive action on some of these items in the immediate term, but delaying legislative changes delays progress on the economy, immigration, and the general attitude of the country.
The longer this legislation takes, the more voters who said they cast their ballot for change—whom Trump told he would immediately make life better—could sour on the administration. With a government trifecta, Republicans would likely shoulder the blame.
That matters for the 2026 midterms, which will begin to loom large in a year and become the dominant conversation in 18 months. Republicans will need to move quickly. We’ll see if they can.
Contributing editor Natalie Jackson is a vice president at GQR Research.
