Republicans will control the reins of the federal government in the White House and Congress to start the new year. Now attention is turning to the legislative agenda that President-elect Donald Trump will likely pursue, including controversial provisions in the Project 2025 document.

For anyone believing Congress will be a mere rubber stamp for ideas like eliminating the Department of Education or wholesale slashing of other government employees, a reality check may be in order.

As in the last Congress, Republicans hold an ultra-thin margin in the House. With a handful of GOP defectors, legislation can stall on major issues. Meanwhile, the Senate also will operate with a tight majority, but there’s another hurdle to consider. Senators steeped in tradition will probably retain the 60-vote filibuster that is normally waived only for judicial appointments and reconciliations.

That tradition forces cooperation between the parties to enact a compromise bill where neither side gets everything it wants.

Another factor to consider is the so-called deep state in Washington. Government reorganization may lop off the top echelon of officials, but anyone with military experience knows the actual work isn’t accomplished by the generals and colonels. It’s the senior NCOs who command the boots on the ground just like in government agencies.

Those middle managers are the ones to see that policy is implemented, so if you start eliminating those people, your agencies become rudderless. Of course, that might be the goal of Project 2025 — reduce the size of the federal government so you can “drown it in a bathtub” as espoused by Grover Norquist years ago.

There are two other overriding themes of Trump’s campaign — steep tariffs on imported goods and cutting taxes — and if he can cajole Congress to enact those measures, the results are predictable. Neither is good for the average taxpayer.

Trump is floating tariff rates of 25% on Mexican and Canadian goods and an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods. The problem for Trump is that he doesn’t understand the impact of tariffs. Manufacturers in foreign countries don’t pay tariffs. They are paid by U.S. importers who have little choice but to add those costs to sale prices for consumers.

Economists estimate that the typical American household will pay an extra $4,500 annually for the same goods with tariffs. Talk about inflation. A lot of business in competitive markets will fail and go bankrupt leading to layoffs and a general slowdown of the economy.

In 2017, Trump pushed through a big tax cut that largely benefits corporations and the wealthy. That law is scheduled to expire next year, so Trump already is talking up more and bigger tax cuts with the same beneficiaries lined up to get the lion’s share.

Republican tax policy hasn’t changed since Ronald Reagan pushed through a tax cut based on the same “trickle down” theory that Trump now employs. That theory holds that if the wealthy are given tax cuts, they will spend more, thus stimulating the economy and lifting the wages of the middle and lower class.

This theory has been repeatedly debunked with the latest salvo coming from the Roosevelt Institute, which issued a report earlier this year with this conclusion:

“Since regressive corporate tax cuts don’t significantly increase earnings for working families … they do reduce the government’s ability to fund family income and care support, childcare costs — which are already rising — can become a relatively more expensive line item in working parents’ household budgets.”

The report, written by Emily DiVito and Niko Lusiani, stated that corporate taxes now account for less than 10% of the federal government’s income. With tax breaks already skewed toward the wealthy, that means the federal government’s income relies heavily on the middle class to make up the shortfall.

If you’re looking for one of the great ironies of this year’s election, it seems that working class folks who voted for Trump were voting against their own economic best interests. So that’s an easy explanation why Republicans focused on abortion, immigration and other cultural hot button issues and lied about the economy that is the best in the past 50 years.

Don’t believe me? Check it out.