With August recess looming, House leaders are scrambling to assemble a third reconciliation bill to enact two major Trump priorities before the midterms.
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House Republicans are scrambling to launch a party-line spending bill that would send funding to the Pentagon and incentivize states to tighten voting rules for the fall midterm elections, but they face an array of hurdles, including demands from conservatives to pay for the legislation.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) met Monday with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana), members of the House Budget Committee and White House officials to discuss the path forward for the package, which would rely on a complex procedure known as reconciliation to permit it to pass both the House and Senate with a simple majority, forgoing Democratic support.
After the meeting, Scalise told reporters that the House Budget Committee would aim to complete the first step in assembling the package — advancing a new budget resolution — this week. The effort marks the third time this Congress that Republicans have resorted to the reconciliation process to finance President Donald Trump’s priorities.
But while reconciliation avoids the need for Democratic votes, it does nothing to help Republican leaders rally their own slim majorities. Fiscally conservative Republicans in the House have made clear that, to gain their support, the package would need to include budget cuts to avoid adding to the nation’s spiraling $39 trillion debt.
“Any money spent ought to have offsets, with the debt we’ve got,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina) told The Washington Post.
House Republicans say they are exploring ways to eliminate what they called “fraud” in social programs; it was unclear how much they were looking to raise and from which programs. But the conservative Republican Study Committee scheduled a meeting Wednesday with Congressional Budget Office Director Phillip Swagel, according to a person familiar with those plans, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting. The nonpartisan CBO advises lawmakers on policy options and assesses the cost of legislation.
With the House set to leave Washington at the end of next week for the August recess, Republicans are racing against the clock. The Senate is set to leave town Aug. 7 until mid-September.
Passing a budget resolution is just the first step in the reconciliation process, creating a framework with spending targets for other committees, which then do the work of assembling the reconciliation package.
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If Republicans don’t pass that framework before the August recess, the path to getting the full package through both chambers before the November midterms would be difficult. Numerous other priorities, including funding the government for fiscal year 2027, will also require a substantial amount of lawmakers’ time this fall.
Further complicating matters, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) died suddenly on Saturday, forcing Senate Republicans to choose another leader for that critical panel before passing their own budget resolution. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) is viewed as Graham’s likely successor.
Republicans have already passed two reconciliation bills this Congress. The One Big Beautiful Bill cut taxes, among other Trump’s priorities, at a cost of $3.4 trillion over the next decade. Another package approved nearly $70 billion for immigration enforcement, funding those agencies through the remainder of Trump’s term.
In the third package, Trump has called on Republicans to approve $350 billion in fresh spending for the Pentagon. He also wants them to include the Save America Act, a bill that would require voters to present proof of citizenship and a photo ID at the polls.
While the House appeared ready to act on some version of that request, appetite in the Senate was less clear. Some key Republicans have dismissed the idea of another reconciliation package. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) told reporters that the path to getting 51 senators to support such a bill would be “a bumpy one.”
“The House is going to need to keep in mind if they decide to move forward,” Thune said, that anything they pass is likely to face “limitations … over here in our process.”
The Save America Act, in particular, is a tough sell. Senate rules almost certainly would prevent the legislation from being included in the reconciliation package because they require every provision to have a budgetary impact.
To get around that obstacle, Johnson has said Republicans would seek to create a grant program that would reward states that impose the Save America Act restrictions. On Monday, however, Scalise told reporters that details were still being hammered out and he was “not sure yet” if the grant program would be the method used.
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