The Senate lacks a veto-proof majority and it probably cannot get through the House.
It is interesting that House Republicans curtailed Congress’s ability to challenge President Donald Trump’s tariffs by embedding a procedural rule change into a stopgap government funding bill passed on March 11, 2025. This is driven by arcane House rules and definitions. You've got to hand it to the Reps to come up with this clever scheme. Gory details below:
The Continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded included a provision that altered how the House counts calendar days under the National Emergencies Act (NEA) for the remainder of 2025. The language stated that “each day for the remainder of the first session of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day” for purposes of the NEA with respect to a national emergency declared by Trump on February 1, 2025.OK, is it now clear how the House Republicans outfoxed the Democrats? I cannot imagine working in that bureaucratic morass where you have to dream up definitions of "days" to defeat the opposition. I thought the bureaucracy in the companies I worked at was bad.The NEA allows Congress to terminate a presidential emergency—like the one Trump used to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China—through a joint resolution. Normally, any member of Congress can force a vote on such a resolution within 15 calendar days of its introduction, followed by a floor vote within three days after committee consideration. Democrats, led by Representative Suzan DelBene, had planned to use this mechanism to challenge Trump’s tariffs later in March. However, by redefining “calendar days” to effectively freeze the 15-day clock for the rest of the year, the rule change blocked this fast-track process.
The CR passed 216-214 along party lines and ensured that no such challenge could be mounted in 2025 without broader legislative action requiring Republican leadership support—unlikely given their control of both chambers.
This move didn’t eliminate Congress’s theoretical power to oppose tariffs entirely; a joint resolution could still pass with majority support in both the House and Senate, followed by Trump’s signature or a veto override. But by suspending the NEA’s expedited timeline, House Republicans made it politically and procedurally harder, shielding their members from having to take a public stance on Trump’s tariffs.
Critics, including Democrats, called it a surrender of Congress’s constitutional trade authority, while House Speaker Mike Johnson defended it as maintaining an “appropriate balance of powers” with the executive branch. The change was a strategic sidestep, not a permanent repeal, but it effectively delayed any immediate congressional pushback against the tariffs for the year.
But, hey! Whatever works and whatever it takes, right?
These losers are just hedging. So they can say “see I voted against them” in case it goes pear shaped.
None of these idiots has a clue as to how even a mom and pop store works, let alone our economy.
They still don’t know what a tariff or VAT is.
I nominate this as the most thoughtful well researched post of the day.