RUTHFULLY YOURS

In our lifetimes, we’ve never seen anything like what we are witnessing at 1400 Pennsylvania Ave., as the Trump administration sets the town ablaze with rapid-fire executive orders, mass firings, and DOGE investigations. The White House is “flooding the zone” with an unprecedented sense of purpose and urgency.

But a mile-and-a-half east on Pennsylvania Avenue, Republican lawmakers act like it’s just another day at the office at the U.S. Capitol – an attitude that could end up dooming Trump’s presidency.

So far, Congress has passed one bill. And it can’t seem to get its act together on the make-or-break “reconciliation” bill that will determine the future success of Trump’s second term.

This is in stark contrast to 2021, when Democrats handed Joe Biden his $1.9 billion “rescue plan” in record time.

Like Trump, Biden laid out what he wanted in that bill before he took office. The House and Senate got to work and passed a “budget resolution” on Feb. 5 of that year – the first step to getting Biden’s massive “rescue plan” passed through the filibuster-proof “reconciliation” process. The final bill hit Biden’s desk on March 11.

Today? House Republicans still aren’t sure they have the votes to get their budget resolution bill passed against opposition from moderates and fiscal hawks over spending cuts.

And the House can’t agree with Senate Republicans on whether to push for one big reconciliation bill – favored by the House – or two separate bills being pushed in the Senate. Any differences would then have to be ironed out in conference committee.

To make matters worse, while the “Big Beautiful” House bill includes a provision extending Trump’s tax cuts – which are set to expire at the end of this year – the Senate plan is to pass two bills. A slimmed-down version now that would boost spending on border security and defense, make changes to U.S. energy policy, and trim spending elsewhere in the budget, but would leave the tax cut extension for a separate bill later this year.

As our good friends at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity explain, the Senate Republican plan makes no sense. “The tax bill should be a first 100- or 150-day agenda item. Each day they wait, the more likely progressives will find a way to derail the tax cut and the more nervous investors get that it will happen at all.”

And, if the Senate’s two-step approach fails, “the average family will pay a $3,000 tax hike. This is a very good plan for conservatives to get run out of town in the midterm elections in 2026.”

Now the Senate is trying to figure out what to do in light of Trump’s post on Truth Social saying “We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget to ‘kickstart’ the Reconciliation process, and move all of our priorities to the concept of, “ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL.”

Republicans can’t blame their narrow margins in the House and Senate for their troubles. Democrats in 2021 had a tiny majority in the House and needed Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote to get anything passed in the Senate. Yet they put petty differences aside, as well as worries about losing in the midterm elections, and seized the moment.

What have Republican lawmakers been doing while Trump has been tearing down the deep state’s pillars? The Senate, to its credit, did act promptly confirming Trump cabinet appointees. Other than that …

The House passed the noncontroversial, bipartisan Laken Riley Act (which is the only bill that the Senate has passed so far). The House also voted for a bill to extend the Nutria Eradication and Control Act by five years, the Alaska Native Village Municipal Lands Restoration Act of 2025, the Wounded Knee Massacre Memorial and Sacred Site Act, and the Fix Our Forests Act.

And – watch out DOGE – the House also approved the Tennessee Valley Authority Salary Transparency Act and the Amtrak Executive Bonus Disclosure Act.

Wow.

(You can see the entire unimpressive list of bills that have passed the House here.)

Republican lawmakers spent the past two years warning voters that the country was headed toward catastrophe unless we changed course immediately. They were right.

What they didn’t do was develop a clear strategy, a plan for how to execute that strategy, and a timeline suited to the urgency of the moment. There’s a reason Republicans are called the stupid party.