In his first 100 days in workplace President Donald Trump has signed simply 5 payments into legislation whereas issuing over 100 government actions, a sample that matches along with his imaginative and prescient of a extra highly effective government.
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Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Photographs/Getty Photographs North America
If Trump has adopted the Silicon Valley ethos of “transfer quick and break issues” for his second time period, then “transfer sluggish and get out of the way in which” could possibly be the corresponding marching orders on Capitol Hill.
President Trump has taken about government actions in his first 100 days in workplace — a speedy tempo that rivals the 162 actions President Biden took in his whole time in workplace.
Think about in the identical time frame, Congress has enacted simply 5 legal guidelines, a low watermark in trendy congressional historical past for this time interval.
To a big extent, Trump is having fun with the spoils of unilateral get together management of Washington, the place there was no vital push again as he legislates via government actions on all the things from immigration to election legislation, ignores statutes that require the White Home to tell the Senate on sure actions earlier than taking them, upends the financial system with tariffs that Congress might technically block and, most notably, allowed billionaire Elon Musk to guide a authorities “division” — with out affirmation hearings earlier than the Senate — that has unilaterally slashed and lower companies and packages funded by Congress via its constitutional authority to find out how taxpayer {dollars} get spent.
In a testomony to the power of Trump’s get together loyalty, GOP leaders have taken little difficulty with it.
“I feel there is a gross overreaction within the media to what’s occurring,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., advised reporters earlier this 12 months when requested whether or not Musk’s authorities slashing efforts had been trampling on congressional turf.
Johnson has stated the president has the authority to ensure {dollars} within the government companies are properly spent. “It appears radical, it is not. I name it stewardship.”
However there are indicators that each one just isn’t properly with some in Congress.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, made a surprising admission at an occasion in Anchorage over the last congressional recess.
“We’re all afraid,” she advised constituents. “It is fairly a press release, however we’re in a time and a spot the place I definitely haven’t been earlier than, and I am going to inform ya, I am oftentimes very anxious myself about utilizing my voice, as a result of retaliation is actual. And that is not proper.”
Meet The New Congress, Identical As The Previous Congress
Trump did not begin this, stated Professor Joseph Postell, an affiliate professor of politics at Hillsdale School, however he’s benefitting from it.
“Congress has for many years form of ceded its authority, together with authority over fiscal issues, appropriations, budgets, issues like that,” he advised NPR, “I feel it is an enormous concern on this Congress, the extent to which Trump has been capable of lead the Congress on fiscal questions, however I additionally do not assume that is out of conserving with the way in which Congress has carried out or carried out itself over the previous few many years.”
Congress is designed to be a co-equal department of presidency and a test on government energy, however in observe when the identical get together controls the White Home, lawmakers within the trendy period have confirmed prepared to associate with the usurpation of their legislative energy.
The dynamic applies to each events — like when Democrats cheered President Biden’s government actions to create a scholar mortgage forgiveness program, which the Supreme Court docket later dominated unconstitutional.
It was this fertile floor that has allowed Musk’s workforce to institute cuts throughout departments, companies, and packages with little pushback from the GOP-led Congress.
Congressional students like Postell say a authorities that features like it is a trigger for concern. “I see the decline of a Congress that legislates as a severe constitutional disaster that anyone who believes in republican authorities ought to be involved about. So I have a tendency to not see this as only a impartial change. I see it as a severe constitutional concern.”
Present Them The Cash
Lawmakers additionally must determine how they will approve the spending payments for fiscal 12 months 2026 — which begins Oct. 1 — after punting on this 12 months’s payments.
Kevin Kosar, a congressional scholar with the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, stated it was comprehensible for Congress to wish to clear the decks firstly of this Congress, however the true check of congressional muscle below Trump will likely be how they deal with subsequent 12 months’s spending payments.
“The affected person we all know as Congress, I don’t assume is wholly lifeless,” Kosar stated, including that Home and Senate lawmakers will need some assurances that the cash is definitely going to be spent as a result of in any other case it is a futile course of. “I might assume, finally, the appropriators’ want for energy would kick in. I imply, it may must kick in sooner or later. In any other case what is the level of being an appropriator?” Kosar stated.
Sarah Binder, a congressional scholar with the centrist Brookings Establishment, agrees. “You do not wish to overuse the phrase, however it’s form of existential for Congress,” she stated, “It is actually laborious to get across the single most essential energy that Congress has as the ability of the purse, and if the events cannot ensure that the administration goes to abide by these pots of cash that they set in to statute, that they put into legislation, then the jig is up, proper?”
Kosar additionally nodded to the political actuality of the second, the place the Home GOP majority is on the road in 2026. Traditionally, the get together in energy within the White Home tends to lose seats within the midterms. Republicans maintain a slim two-seat majority.
“I do really feel just like the administration and congressional Republicans, to a level, actually are working inside a two 12 months window, and so the quantity of deference that legislators are displaying is to a point, like, ‘we simply have to do that to see if we are able to rack up as many wins as attainable, as a result of these midterms are most likely not going to go our method.'”
To that finish, Speaker Johnson has gone as far as to make use of parliamentary guidelines to successfully block the Home’s skill to vote to repeal Trump’s tariffs, in addition to any effort to vote on a decision calling for an investigation into Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the Sign messaging app to debate delicate army operations. “I feel it is an overreach right here,” stated Rep. Mary Scanlon, D-Pa., on Monday, “I feel it is merely for the aim of getting to keep away from powerful votes.”
For his half, Thune advised reporters on Tuesday that Republicans wish to be “good companions” to a president who Thune reiterated has a mandate — “It was clear, it was decisive” — to enact his coverage targets.
A near-term coverage combat that would upend the Senate indefinitely
Newly minted Senate Majority Chief John Thune, R-S.D., has been working judiciously with Senate Republicans to make these coverage targets a actuality within the one “large, stunning invoice” Trump has demanded.
That huge enterprise is meant to make Trump’s 2017 tax cuts everlasting in addition to embody border safety and vitality provision utilizing a price range course of referred to as reconciliation that permits the bulk get together to skirt the filibuster, the chamber’s 60-vote threshold to go most laws, and advance the bundle with out Democratic votes.
Thune has already described it as an “arduous” course of that sometimes entails counting on the Senate parliamentarian to referee what can and what suits the strict guidelines for a reconciliation invoice.
The parliamentarian is a non-partisan Senate staffer tasked with safeguarding Senate guidelines. Prior to now, reconciliation has been guided by that particular person’s judgment. For example, Democrats wished to incorporate a $15 federal minimal wage hike in a 2021 pandemic reduction bundle that superior below reconciliation guidelines. However the parliamentarian nixed the coverage as a result of it didn’t adjust to the difficult guidelines for what’s allowed in such a invoice.
For example, to ensure that a invoice to qualify for reconciliation and the decrease, 50-vote threshold for passage, it typically can’t enhance the federal deficit over the subsequent decade.
However Republicans, backed by Majority Chief Thune, are already seeking to bypass that rule–and the parliamentarian–in order to make use of a positive evaluation for the deficit impression of the tax cuts. In actuality, trillions will likely be added to the U.S. nationwide debt over the subsequent decade if Trump’s tax cuts are prolonged with out methods to pay for them.
Binder says ignoring the parliamentarian will be consequential. “In the event you simply ignore parliamentary historical past, it is actually for a scarcity of a greater time period, it is actually ‘Calvin ball‘ the place you select your guidelines solely for the aim of getting the result that you really want, and that is fairly destabilizing to the U.S. Congress.”
Thune may also seemingly face stress to overrule the parliamentarian if the official guidelines that provisions on immigration or vitality coverage don’t adjust to price range guidelines. Thune has stated publicly he doesn’t want to overrule the parliamentarian, however he might face a stress marketing campaign from Trump to get what the president desires in that invoice.
Democrats warn that doing so would quantity to going “nuclear” and threaten the foundational pillar of minority rule within the Senate: the filibuster. “They’re tramping all around the guidelines which have ruled the Senate for many years as a way to give huge tax cuts for his or her billionaire pals,” stated Schumer on the Senate ground earlier this month.
