Reconciliation 3.0 is on the move in the House.
House Republicans advanced their budget plan out of committee Thursday afternoon — the initial legislative step toward clearing their third party-line budget reconciliation package ahead of the impending August recess.
The House Budget Committee voted to approve a budget resolution along party lines, 20-14. The measure would unlock $95 billion for a GOP-only package to deliver funding President Donald Trump has demanded for the Pentagon, farmers and other priorities.
What the budget blueprint doesn’t contain is instructions to committees to find the vast savings that fiscal hawks were looking for to pay for the new spending. House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) tried to quell concerns from within his party about a lack of offsets required within the budget resolution by pointing to executive branch action.
“He declared war on fraud,” Arrington told the panel, referring to Trump. “He has a whole of government attack on that $500-plus billion a year in fraud.”
On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance also tried to respond to hard-liners’ concerns by telling a gathering of House Republicans that his White House-based task force on fraud is already finding savings from social programs to offset spending. Fiscal hawks were not sold.
Some budget hawks including Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) voted to advance the resolution in committee. Rep. Chip Roy (R) of Texas did not vote in committee. On Wednesday he told reporters “the stupidest thing to do would be to try to jam it through committee when you’ve got bigger problem[s] on the House floor.”
The budget resolution prescribes up to $73 billion for military and intelligence programs and $12 billion for farm assistance. It also opens the door for Republicans to put another $10 billion toward election-related matters including grants to states to incentivize strict voter-ID laws. That portion of the effort is an attempt to enact some of the controversial election security bill that Trump is demanding be passed before he signs any other legislation.
“Not one word on bringing down costs for the American people. Not one word,” ranking member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) said of the nearly 50-page budget resolution. “Instead, we have tens of billions of dollars for the most unpopular war in American history.”
The $73 billion allowed for military and intelligence is about the amount the White House sought in another emergency funding request last month. But the defense total is far below Trump’s demand of $350 billion in new party-line Pentagon funding this year. Of the $60 billion in defense funding, some would go to the ongoing war in Iran and another portion to service member pay, which Pentagon officials have warned will run short in August.
The panel defeated all 14 amendments Democrats offered, including proposals to roll back a bevy of policies from Republicans’ earlier party-line policy bills. Those measures targeted cuts to nutrition assistance programs, energy programs, student loan limitations and changes to Affordable Care Act policies.
Other rejected proposals include language to bar any taxpayer dollars from going to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, barring funding for Trump’s White House ballroom and striking down Trump’s tariffs impacting agriculture producers. Multiple Democratic amendments focused on the conduct of federal immigration officers after several fatal shootings in recent days.
A floor vote on the fiscal blueprint is House GOP leaders’ next challenge in the arduous process of unlocking the filibuster-skirting power of reconciliation. Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to put the resolution on the floor next week, but that will require a serious whip operation to persuade deficit hawks to support the resolution.
On Wednesday ahead of the markup, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) brushed off colleagues who are looking for the package to be fully paid for, including the defense portion.
“When did you ever pay for a war? A lot of this is military expenses aimed at that war,” he said. “The point is that play’s been called. It’s time to put up or shut up.”
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
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