Republicans are headed for a collision course in 2018

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• Republican leaders are at a crossroads on what their 2018 agenda will entail.
• Democrats have not signaled a willingness to comply on a number of issues.
• Congress faces a handful of legislative items before they can pivot to signature legislation like the recently-accomplished tax reform bill.

Republican leaders have significant differences on what the party's policy agenda will entail for 2018 after securing a major legislative victory in overhauling the federal tax code, which included a striking blow to the Affordable Care Act.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law before heading to his Mar-a-Lago estate for the holidays, amounted to his first major legislative win since becoming president. And tax reform was a team effort and longtime dream of House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Because the tax reform bill accomplished much more than lowering rates for families and businesses in the form of repealing the Obamacare's individual mandate and opening up oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), potential avenues for future agenda items have become more possible for Republicans.

Paul Ryan wants to go after entitlements

Reforming America's entitlements is another one of Ryan's elusive policy goals. With a massive tax reform bill now under his belt, Ryan has hinted at wanting to go after entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, and welfare.

"Next year, we're going to have to get back to entitlement reform," Ryan said in a talk radio interview in December.

And Ryan has allies in the House who agree that going after entitlements should be the next course of action. Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania told Business Insider he hopes some kind of entitlement spending control is next.

"I think in the country, people said at where we are right now, we need to have some of these things in place, but now with a dynamic and robust economy and what we see happening right now with the tax cuts and job bill, it makes a lot of things more possible," Kelly said. "But we're gonna have to take a really long, deep look at what we're spending because I still think we're chasing a rabbit right now that's gonna be pretty hard to catch."

But Ryan's desire to rein in entitlements is not shared by other Republican leaders. McConnell has said accomplishing such a feat would be impossible without the support of Democrats, most of whom have already taken it off the table.

"What the Democrats are willing to do is important, because in the Senate, with rare exceptions like the tax bill, we have to have Democratic involvement," McConnell said, noting that he "would not expect to see that on the agenda."

"[W]e will fight to defend them because they are about the health and economic security of America's working families and we will not use Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security as an ATM machine for the Republicans to give tax breaks to their wealthy friends and corporate America," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said at her year-end press conference, signaling that cutting Social Security and other entitlements is not an area where Democrats would provide any support.

To make things more complicated, Trump has privately told multiple Republican lawmakers that he will not touch certain entitlement reforms until he secures a second term in office.

"I specifically recall the president saying that we weren't gonna touch Medicare and Medicaid in his first term," Rep. Kenny Marchant told Business Insider.

One Republican member of Congress said in a meeting with reporters that Trump will not go after Social Security "until the first day of his second term, he told me once."

The White House wants a big infrastructure bill

The Trump administration will roll out an infrastructure plan in January, White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short said Sunday on Fox News. While the way such a plan would be paid for is unclear, the plan is likely to cost upwards of $1 trillion.

Rep. Bill Shuster, who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman, met recently with Trump and White House officials about developing an infrastructure plan.

"Addressing our nation's infrastructure in a bipartisan manner is going to take strong presidential leadership, and I believe we have a president who can provide the necessary leadership and who wants to rebuild our infrastructure to strengthen our economy," Shuster said in a statement.

And unlike entitlements, some Democrats have hinted at a willingness to cooperate on infrastructure, making it a much more likely possibility for 2018.

"As you consider the Administration's proposal, I ask that you consider policies that will bridge the partisan divide and serve the myriad needs of communities across the country - including those of Nevada," Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto wrote in a letter to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Gary Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council.

Cortez-Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, added, "While we all support fiscal discipline and eliminating waste from the federal budget, I would urge you to avoid proposals that pay for your plan with painful cuts to existing programs that invest in our communities and help them grow."

If a bipartisan effort is attainable, then McConnell could get on board with an infrastructure plan, as he noted at an Axios event earlier this month.

"We have to have Democratic involvement," McConnell said. "So things like infrastructure ... to do something in that area we're going to have to have Democratic participation."

Other obstacles remain when Congress returns in January

When lawmakers return from their Christmas break on January 8, they will have to immediately address a handful of issues before any big agenda items can get underway.

Republican leaders will hash out the 2018 agenda at a bicameral conference in West Virginia at the end of January. But right away, they will have to get started on a government funding bill to prevent a shutdown after punting until January 19.

Among other early obstacles for Congress is a legislative solution for undocumented immigrants benefitting from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, tackling the multiple healthcare stabilization bills promised by Senate leadership during the tax bill negotiations, and more.

Whether Congress can move at a rapid pace during an election year and pull off another big legislative win is unclear, but there will be a lot of differences and hurdles in the way.