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News and updates

McMahon confirmed as Secretary of Education

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The Senate voted along party lines on Monday evening to confirm Linda McMahon as the next Secretary of Education. McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive and wealthy Republican donor, served as the administrator of the Small Business Administration in the first Trump Administration. She now leads a department that President Trump has proposed eliminating.

A former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment and chairman of America First Action, a pro-Trump Super PAC, McMahon has been a longtime ally of President Trump. She launched two unsuccessful campaigns to represent Connecticut in the Senate and previously served on the Connecticut State Board of Education for one year. She has also served as a trustee at Sacred Heart University for over a decade.

McMahon told reporters during her confirmation process that she “wholeheartedly” agrees with President Trump’s mission to dismantle the “bureaucracy in Washington” and return education to the states. She added that her goal is to make the Education Department “operate more efficiently,” not to defund programs. Her confirmation, however, comes in the midst of an aggressive government overhaul project, led by Elon Musk, that has targeted the department and its employees. On Friday, employees in the department were given an offer of up to $25,000 if they agreed to retire or resign by the end of the day. President Trump has also told reporters that he hopes McMahon will “work herself out of a job.”

McMahon will now take over leadership of the department of over 4,200 employees in charge of sending federal money to schools, administering college financial aid, and managing federal student loans.

House Passes Budget Resolution

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On Tuesday, the House of Representatives narrowly passed a Republican budget resolution that would advance much of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda in one “big, beautiful bill.” After weeks of infighting and doubt surrounding the passage of the resolution, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other House GOP leaders were able to successfully advance the resolution in a 217 to 215 party-line vote. Only one Republican, Rep. Massie (R-KY) defected, citing concerns over measures that would increase the deficit.

House and Senate GOP leaders had been at odds over the strategy behind this legislative package, with Senate leaders preferring a two-pronged approach in which defense, immigration, and energy would be tackled in one bill and taxes in another bill later in the year. House leaders, on the other hand, with the backing of President Trump, stood firmly behind their one-bill approach.

The Senate passed their own version of the resolution last week, so now leaders from both chambers will need to coalesce around a single plan. The largest roadblocks will likely be the $4.5 trillion in tax cuts called for by the House plan, which would be paid for in part by the proposed cuts to programs such as Medicaid and SNAP. Moderates in both chambers have voiced concerns over these provisions, while hardline conservatives have demanded more severe spending cuts to offset the tax plan.

While significant challenges lie ahead for President Trump’s agenda, the passage of the House resolution is a major hurdle that has now been cleared. If House and Senate Republicans can build support behind a single bill, they will unlock the ability to pass it through the reconciliation process which, crucially, is not subject to filibuster in the Senate.

All of this is occurring while top appropriators in both chambers scramble to stave off the government shutdown slated to take effect later this month if a spending agreement is not reached. The continuing resolution reached late last year is set to expire after March 14th, and negotiations appear to have stalled as Democrats seek assurances from congressional Republicans that President Trump will spend any money that is appropriated.

Lutnick Confirmed as Commerce Secretary

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By a vote of 51 – 45, the Senate confirmed Tuesday evening Howard Lutnick as the Secretary of Commerce.  While the issue of tariffs may be the most high profile issue under the jurisdiction of the department, a number of scientific and research agencies are also under its purview, including the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

During his confirmation hearing, a number of Senators asked him for his views about NOAA and reports of possible changes to the agency.  Though he expressed his support for the agency, he did not explicitly commit to keeping agency intact in its current form.

House Budget Committee Approves GOP Framework

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On Thursday night, the House Budget Committee advanced their budget resolution, the first legislative step toward fulfilling Donald Trump’s policy agenda. The fiscal blueprint was advanced in a 21-16 party line vote after GOP hardliners on the committee were brought on board following weeks of negotiations. The next step for the resolution is a floor vote in the House, another difficult task with the GOP’s razor-thin majority.

The budget resolution contains reconciliation instructions, meaning that, if adopted by both chambers, it will instruct certain committees to draft legislation implementing spending changes. Each committee that receives instructions then writes a bill to achieve the prescribed target, before the bills are packaged into one large piece of legislation. Crucially, this legislation cannot be filibustered in the Senate, meaning that it can be passed by a simple majority in both chambers.

The passage out of committee comes after weeks of negotiations and infighting among House Republicans, with Budget Committee hardliners holding up passage by demanding larger spending cuts. The uncertainty in the House led Senate GOP leaders to introduce their own budget resolution last week. Senate Republicans largely favor a two-step reconciliation approach, with border security, defense, and energy being tackled early in the year and tax cuts receiving a separate legislative package later on. House GOP leaders, on the other hand, favor the Trump-backed plan to advance the entire legislative package in “one big, beautiful bill.” The passage of their resolution out of the Budget Committee brings them one step closer to achieving this goal.

The resolution, which House Budget Chair Joey Arrington (R-TX) called “the fiscal framework for what will be one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in modern history,” instructs the House Ways and Means Committee to come up with tax cuts that will increase the deficit by up to $4.5 trillion over a decade. It orders other committees, including the Education and Workforce, Energy and Commerce, and Agriculture Committees, to cut at least $1.5 trillion from mandatory spending programs to help offset these tax cuts.

The House is set to schedule a vote on the resolution during the last week of February.

As noted above, the Senate Republicans’ preference on reconciliation is through two bills and the Senate Budget Committee approved its first budget resolution on Wednesday.  The two chambers will need to bridge their differences along the way.