The US House of Representatives secures a tiny Republican majority to tackle enormous tasks in 2025

WASHINGTON – The new Congress begins Friday and will usher in a tiny Republican majority in the House of Representatives to tackle enormous tasks in the first year of Donald Trump’s second term, from keeping the government open to averting a catastrophic debt default to encouraging the Immigration and taxation of the elected president’s ambitions.

Republicans won a 220-seat majority to 215 in the 2024 election but will start with 219 members because former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has already resigned and vowed not to reclaim his seat.

That means House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., can’t afford more than a defection to be re-elected as speaker in a public vote Friday. But sticking with his job is the easy part: What comes next will be the biggest test of the Louisiana Republican’s political career.

Johnson’s majority is expected to shrink even further in the coming weeks as Trump has announced he will tap two House Republicans to join his administration – Florida’s Michael Waltz as national security adviser and New York’s Elise Stefanik as UN ambassador. The exchange is likely to take months.

If both leave before Gaetz is replaced, that would shrink the majority to an even more paltry 217 to 215, meaning a single Republican defection could kill a bill unless Democrats vote for it.

In other words, House Republicans will have a zero-vote margin for defection in the crucial first months of Trump’s presidency. Even if the party returns to full strength, the House majority could struggle to pass intraparty legislation if a handful of members fall ill, have scheduling conflicts or experience weather-related delays that prevent them from getting to Washington in time for key votes. Republicans will have a slightly larger majority in the Senate, 53-47, when senators are sworn in on Friday and begin planning hearings for Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

And they have a long to-do list. This is on the 2025 agenda.

Funding the government until March 14th

Last month’s protracted fight over a short-term bill to prevent a government shutdown just pushed the deadline back to March 14, less than two months after Trump took the oath of office. That means Republicans still have to strike a deal with Democrats over funding the government, which regularly creates clashes between moderate Republicans, military hawks and conservative hardliners.

If history is any guide, it is unlikely that House Republicans will find enough votes to pass a bill without Democrats, as they always lose some votes on the right. But even if they manage to unify their conference in the House, they will need 60 votes in the Senate to pass legislation, meaning House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and the new Senate Minority Leader , Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., this requires any deal to be signed to prevent a shutdown.

That means Johnson will ultimately have to sell another compromise package to members who routinely criticize such bills.

Enact Trump’s agenda on immigration, energy and taxes

Republicans hope legislation can move forward quickly to advance core parts of Trump’s agenda. They have made it clear that they will use the budget “reconciliation process” to bypass the Senate’s 60-vote rule and pass a bill with only Republican votes.

This process has limitations. It starts with passing a budget resolution setting fiscal parameters and tasking committees, and then the final bill can only make changes in spending and tax policy that require compromises that Conservatives would rather not accept. Democrats can challenge and eliminate any provisions that are not tax or spending related and therefore do not qualify for the 50-vote route.

Disagreements have already become public. New Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is pushing for a split into two bills, hoping to score a quick victory on giving Trump more money for border security before he dies later in This year, another partisan measure is proposing to extend Trump’s tax cuts before they expire on the last day of 2025. But Tax Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., is warning Republicans that delaying the tax law could jeopardize it and risk a multi-trillion dollar tax increase.

Whatever strategy they pursue, Republicans will also need to reach near unanimity on controversial issues, such as how much to add to the deficit and what parts of outgoing President Joe Biden’s gains they need to repeal to finance their new policies. The latter is more complicated than it sounds — large portions of the Biden clean energy programs that GOP leaders are seeking to repeal benefit conservative districts represented by Republicans.

Extend debt ceiling

Under bipartisan legislation signed last year, the U.S. is poised to hit the debt ceiling this month and will begin taking “extraordinary measures” to pay the bills and prevent a default that could have catastrophic consequences for the American — and global economy could have. That will probably buy Congress a few months, but at some point this year members will have to extend the debt ceiling without exception.

Last month, Trump’s last-minute demand that Congress scrap the debt ceiling on him was widely rejected by both parties. Despite Trump’s threat to file priority challenges against Republicans who voted for a funding bill without setting the debt limit, 170 GOP members supported such a measure.

Many Republicans routinely vote against raising or extending the debt ceiling. But Democrats, who usually pick up the slack, may be reluctant to help Republicans raise the debt ceiling as the GOP passes a bipartisan tax bill that the opposition says would primarily benefit the rich.

So will the Republicans make a deal with the Democrats? Will they find a way to raise the borrowing cap using only Republican votes, perhaps in a reconciliation bill?

Last month, Republicans made a closed-door pact to push for $2.5 trillion in spending cuts in 2025 while raising the debt limit to appease conservative hardliners. But some say the deal isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

“They call this a gentleman’s agreement,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who has opposed bills to lift the debt limit in the past, told NBC News. “And there are no gentlemen up here, dude.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com