WASHINGTON — The Republican-led Congress had a busy first year of President Donald Trump’s second term in 2025.
From approving Trump’s signature tax-cut and spending legislation to repealing a record number of regulations under a fast-track procedure, the actions taken on Capitol Hill this year will impact just about every American.
It was also a dramatic year, with the party’s narrow House majority fighting bitterly amongst itself and Congress struggling to achieve bipartisan deals to pass funding bills, leading to a record 43-day shutdown last fall.
Here are four big things Congress did in 2025.
Made Trump’s tax cuts permanent
Republican leaders made good on their top priority of extending the Trump tax cuts, which passed in 2017 and were slated to expire at the end of this year. The “big, beautiful bill” — as Trump dubbed it — passed both chambers with only Republican votes and was signed into law on July 4.
“America’s winning, winning, winning like never before,” Trump said before enacting it. “We have officially made the Trump tax cuts permanent.”
Trump also touted other provisions, including a tax deduction for tipped workers, a tax break for tipped workers, a deduction for seniors and tax-advantaged “Trump Accounts” for newborns.
The law is projected to slash taxes by $4.5 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. While the tax extensions affected all levels of income earners, Democrats noted that a disproportionate share of the tax benefits go to the highest earners.
Trillion-dollar Pentagon and mass deportations
Also significant are the spending provisions in the massive law.
It contains a $150 billion infusion for the Pentagon — which, alongside the $900 billion in spending approved under the annual National Defense Authorization Act — gives the U.S. military its first-ever budget topping $1 trillion.
In addition, the legislation authorized more than $170 billion for immigration enforcement to hire ICE agents, conduct raids and carry out mass deportations, a cornerstone of Trump's agenda.
Democrats have focused their criticism on the bill’s $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts, included to help reduce the red ink. The law also slashes clean energy funding that Democrats passed in 2022.
Repealed a record number of regulations
This year, Republican leaders aggressively used a 1996 law known as the Congressional Review Act to fast-track repeal of a record number of federal regulations imposed under the Biden administration, spanning consumer protection and education to energy and cybersecurity.
In 2025, Congress passed 22 “CRA” resolutions that Trump signed into law, according to the American Action Forum, a conservative group tracking the issue. That’s more than the 20 rules repealed through CRA resolutions in the entire history of the law prior to 2025.
Unlike most bills, the CRA measures are exempt from the 60-vote filibuster rule in the Senate, so Democrats were largely powerless to stop the GOP’s 53-member Senate majority.
Weakened minority power in the Senate
Senate Republicans made several consequential moves this year to limit the minority’s power to obstruct or slow down business.
In September, they used the “nuclear option” to change Senate rules and allow presidential nominations for executive branch positions to be confirmed “en bloc” — one vote to confirm an unlimited number of nominees, dispensing with the requirement to debate and process each one individually. That month, Republicans confirmed a package of 48 nominees. Before adjourning for the year, they confirmed another 97 nominees.
In addition, this Senate majority has expanded the scope of what the chamber can do with 51 votes — by establishing a new budget baseline to slap a $0 price tag on $3.4 trillion in party-line tax cuts, and by ignoring the parliamentarian’s opinion about limitations on what can be repealed under the CRA process.
Despite these moves, the 60-vote threshold remains intact for most other legislation, as Republican leaders have resisted Trump's demands to abolish what's left of the filibuster.
