Republicans are getting ready to chop taxes, slash spending and gradual immigration in a broad agenda that can require unifying an unruly social gathering behind dozens of sophisticated coverage decisions.

For now, although, they’re fighting a extra prosaic choice: whether or not to cram their coverage objectives into one invoice or break up them into two.

It’s a seemingly technical query that reveals a elementary divide amongst Republicans about whether or not to prioritize a wide-ranging crackdown on immigration or reducing taxes, previewing what might be months of intramural coverage debate.

Some Republicans have argued that they need to go two payments so as to rapidly push by laws centered on immigration on the southern border, a key marketing campaign promise for Mr. Trump and his social gathering’s candidates. However Republicans dedicated to reducing taxes have pressed for one mammoth invoice to make sure that tax cuts are usually not left on the cutting-room flooring.

President-elect Donald J. Trump met with Republican senators in Washington on Wednesday, as these lawmakers sought readability on his most popular technique. He has waffled between the 2 concepts, prolonging the dispute.

“Whether or not it’s one invoice or two payments, it’s going to get performed,” Mr. Trump informed reporters after the assembly.

Republicans are planning to ram the partisan fiscal bundle by the Senate over the opposition of Democrats utilizing a course of known as reconciliation, which permits them to keep away from a filibuster and go payments with a easy majority vote. However for a lot of this yr, Republicans will probably be working with a one-seat majority within the Home and a three-seat majority within the Senate, that means they may want close to unanimity to go main laws.

That has left some anxious that it is going to be exhausting sufficient passing one invoice, a lot much less two.

“There’s severe danger in having a number of payments that need to go to get your agenda by,” Consultant Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the bulk chief, stated. “When you recognize you’ve obtained lots of people that need this primary bundle, when you solely put sure issues within the first bundle, they’ll vote no on the second and also you lose the entire second bundle. That may be devastating.”

Including to the urgency of attaining their coverage objectives, Republicans are dealing with a political catastrophe ought to they fail to ship. Lots of the tax cuts they put into place in 2017, the final time Mr. Trump was president, expire on the finish of the yr. That implies that taxes on most People might go up if Congress doesn’t go a tax invoice this yr.

Passing tax cuts can take time, although. Whereas a lot of the Republican tax agenda includes persevering with measures the social gathering handed in 2017, Mr. Trump and different Republicans have floated extra concepts, together with no taxes on suggestions and new incentives for companies to fabricate in america. Concepts like that would take months to formulate into workable coverage.

Then there may be the large price. The nonpartisan Congressional Funds Workplace estimates that merely extending the 2017 tax cuts would price greater than $4 trillion over a decade — a price ticket that may develop if different tax cuts, like Mr. Trump’s proposal to not tax time beyond regulation pay, are included.

Additional complicating assist for the laws is that Republicans plan to boost the debt restrict by reconciliation, one other delicate problem for fiscal hawks.

Members of the ultraconservative Home Freedom Caucus have stated they’d not assist any laws until the prices it introduces are offset by spending cuts. Whereas most Republicans assist reining in federal spending, agreeing on which federal applications to slash at all times proves more durable than anticipated. In an tried workaround, Republicans have as an alternative begun to discover methods to alter Washington’s funds guidelines so the tax cuts are proven to price much less.

The complexity of pulling collectively a tax invoice that may safe the mandatory votes has some Republicans hoping to carry off till later within the yr and first cost forward with a smaller invoice centered on immigration, power and navy points. Republicans haven’t but publicly sketched out what that invoice would appear to be.

Proponents of that technique argue it will ship Mr. Trump an early political victory on immigration and deal with a high Republican marketing campaign problem with the urgency it deserves.

“The No. 1 precedence is securing our border,” Consultant Byron Donalds of Florida informed reporters on Tuesday. “In my view it’s the highest precedence, and every part else is a detailed second.”

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the chairman of the Funds Committee who will probably be overseeing the reconciliation course of, has additionally pressed for a two-bill method. “In the event you maintain border safety hostage to get tax cuts, you’re enjoying Russian roulette with our nationwide safety,” he stated.

Republicans have regarded to Mr. Trump to intervene and set a transparent course for the social gathering. On Sunday, he wrote on social media that Congress ought to go “one highly effective Invoice,” an obvious victory for lawmakers like Consultant Jason Smith of Missouri, the chairman of the Home Methods and Means Committee, who had championed that method. Mr. Trump’s equivocation since then, although, has left Republicans nonetheless uncertain of which technique they need to pursue.

Mr. Trump’s assembly with high Republican senators on Wednesday will probably be adopted by a dialogue with numerous Home Republicans in Florida over the weekend.

In an indication of how politically sophisticated the tax reduce dialogue might get, one of many periods is anticipated to deal with stress-free the $10,000 restrict on the state and native tax deduction, generally known as SALT.

Republicans included the $10,000 restrict within the 2017 tax regulation as a method to include the price of that laws. However the transfer angered Home Republicans from high-tax states like New York and New Jersey, a lot of whom voted in opposition to the whole 2017 tax invoice in consequence. Such defections are a luxurious that Republican leaders can’t afford this yr given their slim majority.

G.O.P. lawmakers from New York, New Jersey and California might tank a tax invoice if they’re unhappy with how the availability is dealt with. They’re now pushing to carry the cap as a part of the social gathering’s tax invoice. Eliminating the cap fully might add roughly $1 trillion to the value tag of the laws.

Maneuvering formidable coverage agendas by Congress has typically been a messy and time-consuming course of for presidents. A Republican effort to repeal the Inexpensive Care Act throughout Mr. Trump’s first time period collapsed after greater than six months of dialogue.

After rapidly passing pandemic aid measures in 2021 below President Biden, a lot of Democrats’ broader agenda was stymied for nearly two years earlier than a second party-line measure handed that was far narrower than many within the social gathering had hoped.

This time round, Republicans will probably be grappling not solely with a traditionally slim margin within the Home, but additionally a president liable to sudden modifications of coronary heart.

“You may argue the deserves of each” methods, stated Consultant Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican who leads the Home Funds Committee. “He has to inform us what he desires and what he wants.”