House, Senate split over best way to pass Trump agenda

As Congress attempts to advance President Donald Trump's tax cut agenda, there has been a split between the House and Senate about how to best do so, resulting in two different packages of legislation.

The House has put border security, energy, and national defense priorities together with an extension of Trump's tax cuts from 2017, while the Senate has separated the tax cuts from the rest and will put forward two separate bills.

All of the legislation will be advanced under budget reconciliation, a process that only requires a simple majority to pass rather than the 60 votes required for cloture on most Senate legislation.

The Senate's reasoning is that the tax cuts would be harder to pass and take longer, so they wanted to give Trump some early wins with the rest of the package. The tax cuts will expire at the end of 2025 if nothing is passed to extend them.

The House figures that it would be unlikely based on recent history to pass two reconciliation bills, so they want to get everything possible into one.

Trump has said he favors the House's plan for one massive bill, but there is enough Republican opposition to the current bill at this point to make its passage unlikely.