House Republicans are in Florida this week for their annual policy retreat, during which they hope to reach an agreement on a plan for budget reconciliation legislation. The first day of the retreat featured a keynote address by Trump, laying out his vision for what he hopes will be the defining achievements of his first 100 days in office – extension and expansion of his 2017 tax cuts.

While Republicans generally support extending the 2017 cuts, the path forward for doing so looks increasingly problematic due to an exorbitant price tag (early estimates of the new cuts are upwards of almost $10 trillion) and an increasingly complicated political landscape. Here are some of the challenges ahead:

One or Two (or More) Bills

One of the biggest points of contention early in the reconciliation conversation is Republicans should try to advance their agenda through a single reconciliation bill or to split up policies into two bills. The broad picture is that Senate Republicans want to pass two bills, while the House wants to attempt to pass everything in one bill – a stance that Trump initially endorsed but has since said he “doesn’t care” how many bills Congress decides to take up.

Much of the argument in favor of two bills centers around concerns about the ability to secure enough votes to pass a single bill with all priorities included when the party is so fractured. Also, Congress hasn’t been able to pass more than one reconciliation bill in a year in over a decade, a fact that House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) cites in his argument for moving one bill.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) has even proposed tackling Trump’s agenda with three reconciliation bills - a first bill that would address funding for a border wall, while the second would include a straight extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to give businesses certainty, and remaining priorities lumped into the third.

The Timeline

The timeline for passing at least an initial reconciliation package is as follows:

Week of Feb. 10: House Budget Committee approves a budget resolution, followed by a House floor vote

Week of Feb. 17: Senate vote-a-rama to adopt a budget resolution

A week to negotiate a bicameral resolution that serves as a compromise between the House and Senate plans

Feb 27: Final vote to adopt a concurrent budget resolution backed by Republicans in both chambers

By Easter: Pass a reconciliation package on the House floor

By Memorial Day: Final passage

Adhering to this timeline will be a challenge. Despite the appeal of the budget reconciliation process being expedited consideration, negotiating what’s included in what’s likely to be comprehensive legislation will be a tall order.

Vote Margins

Securing enough votes to move the bill through both chambers will also be a major challenge that will require real compromise. While another benefit of using reconciliation to pass landmark legislation is that the Senate’s typical 60-vote threshold for ending the filibuster is reduced to a simple majority (and Senate Republicans now have 53 potential votes), Republicans’ majority in the House is razor thin.

With the seats held by former Representatives Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz now vacant until April, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee set to advance Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) nomination to be U.N. ambassador later this week and a full Senate vote likely following soon after, House Republicans could be down 3 votes by next month. This would leave House Republicans with a 217-to-215 seat majority - meaning if they lose a single vote, the reconciliation package would fail. In 2017, Republicans lost 13 votes on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Simultaneous Priorities

Finally, the universe of legislative priorities that need to be addressed by Congress in the coming months creates even more problems:

FY25 Appropriations: Congress has until March 14 to pass another funding bill for Fiscal Year 2025. The solution likely needs to be the passage of an omnibus or a combination of individual bills and packages to fund the government before April 30th to avoid the full suite of mandatory budget cuts negotiated by President Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy to avoid debt default in 2023.

Increasing the Debt Limit: Before this Summer, Congress will also have to pass legislation to increase the debt limit to avoid a fiscal cliff – an issue that Trump tried to address in the most recent continuing resolution back in December. Getting fiscal conservatives like Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) to vote in favor of increasing the debt limit will be extremely difficult, making it very unlikely that doing so will happen in a reconciliation bill without major concessions.

Disaster Aid: Following the devastating fires in Los Angeles, a second round of billions of dollars (possibly over $100 billion) of supplemental funding for disaster relief is expected in the coming months. House Republicans have proposed delivering this funding with conditions attached; the main proposal being an exchange for support for a debt limit increase, which Democrats have staunchly opposed.

While the prospect of quickly passing major policies that otherwise stand a chance in a divided Congress, navigating a bill that gains the support of virtually every Republican in Congress will be an extremely difficult task. Majority Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson will have to work together to thread the needle of their conferences and advance a budget reconciliation package (or packages) and deliver for Trump.