![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6423a1fc2d278115f0e242f969ba4b799d-johnson-congressend.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
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\n Speaker Mike Johnson slinks out of Washington.
\n Photo: Al Drago\/Bloomberg\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
The first session of the 119th Congress was characterized by frenetic activity, even if some of it was simply a matter of getting out of the way of Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s various executive-branch power grabs. The largest and broadest single piece of legislation ever, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act<\/a>, was signed into law on July 4, 2025. It was so packed with policy dynamite (tax cuts, a huge plus-up for defense and immigration-enforcement spending, and social-services cuts that wreaked havoc around the country) that members of both parties are still campaigning on its good and bad features well over a year later. In 2025, Congress revoked<\/a> much of the regulatory legacy of the Biden administration and found new ways to confirm Trump\u2019s executive and judicial nominees quickly and without debate<\/a>.<\/p>\n If reckless speed was the watchword for the Republican Congress in 2025, in 2026 it was ma\u00f1ana. Yes, it passed another budget-reconciliation bill, but it was very narrowly tailored to pre-fund immigration enforcement. Yes, Congress kept the federal government open<\/a>, aside from a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security<\/a> that dragged on for months with no real resolution. But again and again, sometimes with the House leading the foot-dragging and sometimes the Senate, Congress kept putting off major initiatives, including many that the tyrant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had insisted he just had to have. And now Congress is in recess, for all intents and purposes, until after the midterm elections (yes, the House is due to return for four days in mid-September<\/a>, but only to ventilate the air over \u201cmessaging\u201d bills that aren\u2019t intended to become law).<\/p>\n Politico\u2019s take<\/a> on Congress\u2019s unfinished business mentioned much-needed data-center legislation distancing the GOP from that suddenly very unpopular by-product of the AI revolution; the Russia-sanctions legislation once expected to quickly be enacted as a memorial to Lindsey Graham<\/a>; and steps to continue Epstein-files<\/a> oversight and examine DoJ\u2019s slow-walking of the controversy. But as Democratic senator Brian Schatz noted, there is so, so much more going undone:<\/p>\n No farm bill. No AI regulations. No affordability agenda. No transportation bill. No water resources bill. No college sports bill. No end to this war \u2026 See you right before the holidays! Great job!<\/p>\n Perhaps most remarkable of all, there\u2019s no third budget-reconciliation bill<\/a>, which was supposed to be the vehicle for a veritable ton of agenda items various Republicans wanted and needed. It was necessary, we were told, to pay for the unanticipated costs of the Iran war, to provide succor to farmers aggrieved by the president\u2019s trade initiative, and most important, to give said president a sort of down payment<\/a> on the radical proof-of-citizenship voting scheme he wanted to impose via the SAVE America Act<\/a>. Some fiscal hawks, moreover, hoped Reconciliation 3.0 might begin the much-anticipated work of gutting the social safety net<\/a> far more than contemplated in the Big Beautiful Bill and even beginning to reduce the national debt. None of that is happening. Somehow, today, with Congress already long gone and intent on barely coming back, Donald Trump sent out this order on Truth Social<\/a>:<\/p>\n PASS THE SAVE AMERICA ACT!!!<\/p>\n How? When? In truth, Trump\u2019s hopes of blowing up the midterms by taking over state-voters rolls to purge imaginary noncitizens now depends on a long-shot bid for Supreme Court approval<\/a> of his wild scheme to make the U.S. Postal Service a choke point for mail ballots. But he can\u2019t seem to let go of the reins he holds of his runaway Congress.<\/p>\n