January 21, 2025: What We Can Learn from House Republicans’ Reconciliation Menu

A document leaked last week listing measures Republicans in Congress could attempt to pass via reconciliation. Reportedly compiled by the House Budget Committee, the 50-page list describes dozens of provisions and their estimated budgetary impacts, covering a wide range of issues.

Below are some key takeaways. 

Corporations and the mega-rich would benefit heavily from this list. Everyone else? Not so much.

Among the options listed are lowering the corporate tax rate to 15 percent at a cost of $522 billion, eliminating entirely the estate tax on multimillionaires at a cost of $370 billion, and preventing the government from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices at a cost of up to $20 billion. 

At the same time, the list proposes Medicaid per capita caps that take away people’s health care, cutting cash assistance for low-income families with children, and much more that will make it harder for families to make ends meet. 

Nearly a dozen House committees could play a role in reconciliation, but none more so than Ways and Means.

The document’s first 18 pages describe legislative options that fall under the Ways and Means Committee’s—i.e., the tax-writing committee—jurisdiction. Items in the Energy and Commerce Committee and Education and Workforce Committee’s jurisdictions also get ample real estate. The House Agriculture; Financial Services; Space, Science, and Technology; Oversight and Government Reform; Natural Resources; Transportation and Infrastructure, Judiciary; and Homeland Security Committees are also mentioned. 

Remember: reconciliation kicks off with a budget resolution that tell specific committees to write parts of the reconciliation package, and that defines the universe of topics the package can cover. The final bill is only going to include policies that fall under those committees’ jurisdiction. 

Whether the 11 committees named in this document make it into that budget resolution remains to be seen—but the sheer number of provisions listed could indicate that Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Workforce will play big roles in this process. 

For a full rundown of the reconciliation process and key moments to watch, check out The Basics of Budget Reconciliation.

We still don’t know if there will be one reconciliation bill or two. 

For more on that question, see our January 10 update, One or two reconciliation bills—and why does it matter?

This is a list of options.

The GOP won’t pursue everything on this list. A number of items are redundant. On top of that, the leak will set off lots of stakeholder jockeying to get their priorities added or stricken. This is simply an indication of what House Republicans determined was on the table for reconciliation at the time it was written, which isn’t clear.  

We’ll continue to keep you updated as more information becomes available—so sign up for Unrig the Rules to stay in the loop!