Congress

As affordability concerns mount, Hill Republicans are struggling to act

Published

11 months ago

December 8, 2025

Republicans want to put the economy at the center of their midterm message as they seek to protect their majorities in Congress. But as cost-of-living concerns mount across the political spectrum, the GOP is struggling to act decisively to address them.

Already top Republicans acknowledge they haven’t done enough to sell the “one big, beautiful bill,” the party-line centerpiece of their economic agenda they enacted over the summer. Now internal divisions and the need for bipartisan support in the Senate are threatening any attempt to follow up on it.

The GOP is struggling to coalesce behind a health care plan that would prevent Obamacare premium hikes set to kick in next month and efforts to rein in President Donald Trump’s tariffs have run aground in the House. Meanwhile, the administration’s proposal to distribute $2,000 rebate checks has gotten a lukewarm response on Capitol Hill and the fate of other smaller bills to address things like housing prices and student debt have sparked intraparty sparring.

“The cost of living is a legitimate issue — I think it was one of the main reasons President Trump was elected. I think it’s still an issue,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said in an interview, urging Republicans to pursue another party-line bill before the midterms in response.

While many in the GOP — including Trump — continue to lay blame for their economic problems with former President Joe Biden, there are clear warning signs for Republicans. Forty-six percent of respondents in a recent POLITICO Poll said the cost of living is the worst they can remember it being.

That includes 37 percent of those who voted for Trump in 2024, and about a quarter of Trump voters say he is either fully or mainly responsible for the current state of the economy.

Yet top GOP leaders in Congress are keeping expectations low for major new economic legislation. Instead, they are betting on having an easier time addressing affordability questions next month, when new programs enacted as part of the megabill start impacting voters — like no taxes on some tips and overtime income.

“We haven’t probably messaged as effectively as we should,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview, when asked about the party’s economic case. “I think we’ll have lots of opportunities now that we’re getting into an election year to talk about the things we’ve done and how they are going to lead to things being more affordable for the American people, probably starting with tax relief next year.”

Speaker Mike Johnson also argued voters have not fully felt the impact of the megabill “because it takes a while for it to be implemented.” But he predicted that by mid-2026, “there’s going to be boats rising in the economy, this is going to be a very different situation before we go into the election cycle.”

“Republicans are dialed in like a laser, with laser focus on the cost of living and affordability,” he added, while forecasting more to come: “They are going to see this agenda going forward — our affordability agenda.”

But there are reasons to doubt an impending turnaround. Some of these same leaders argued this summer, as they strained to pass the megabill, that Americans would feel the economic benefits in a big way by late fall. That never materialized, with Republicans instead bogged down in a monthslong fight over releasing files related to Jeffrey Epstein and a lengthy government shutdown. Trump himself has recently taken to calling the emphasis on affordability a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.

Democrats are gearing up to hammer the GOP on the issue, and some of them are hearing some familiar echoes in the promises of a rapid turnaround just around the corner. Democrats said much the same thing after their party passed their own major party-line bills as inflation rose under Biden.

“They are in a bubble from Donald Trump on down,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters last week. “Donald Trump says there’s no affordability crisis — what kind of world is he living in?”

Kennedy isn’t the only one talking up the idea of doing a second party-line bill using the budget reconciliation process to overcome a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. The Republican Study Committee, a large bloc of House conservatives, is pushing such a bill aimed at addressing affordability and other issues, and Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is vowing to plow forward in laying the groundwork for another reconciliation measure.

But Johnson and Thune have treaded lightly on the prospects for second such bill, which faces uphill odds with the GOP divided on the policy particulars and the midterms drawing closer by the day. Instead attention is being drawn to smaller-bore efforts.

Tony Fabrizio, a top Trump pollster, also urged members of the RSC last week to tackle high prices for prescription drugs and housing — warning members in a closed-door meeting that affordability concerns were a key reason a House special election in Tennessee was so close.

But even a push to attach a bipartisan housing package to the annual defense policy bill sparked an intraparty turf war, pitting Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the panel’s ranking member, against House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.).

Scott said in an interview last week the housing measure is “a great sign that we are looking for ways to address the challenges that we see in real America” and that passing it now would “put lawmakers “on the same page as President Trump and the White House.”

But Hill, who plans to advance a separate housing package through his committee later this month, told senators that parts of the Senate bill are unacceptable to most House Republicans and need to be left out of the Pentagon bill.

Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.), who is spearheading the House package, said last week he would be “amenable to something that has provisions the House wants and the Senate wants.” Thune, asked if the Senate housing provision would get in the defense bill, crossed his fingers.

But no agreement could be reached over the weekend, and the House released defense bill text Sunday night that did not include the housing provisions.

Other lawmakers are itching to show that the party is addressing other affordability concerns, even if those efforts face an uncertain path to becoming law.

House GOP leaders, for instance, are trying to move long-delayed permitting reform legislation over the floor in the coming weeks, arguing that reducing red tape for energy and other projects would lower the cost of living. And Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) told reporters Thursday there could soon be a bipartisan effort to force a bill capping student loan interest at 2 percent to the House floor.

“That’s a hint for next week,” she said, when asked if she or a colleague would pursue a discharge petition aimed at sidestepping House GOP leaders who have opposed other forms of student loan relief.

House and Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are having a furious behind-the-scenes debate about how to show they are trying to address health care costs ahead of the end-of-year expiration of Obamacare subsidies used by more than 20 million Americans.

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) acknowledged “there’s a lot more to do” on affordability beyond this year’s megabill on health care and more: “Obviously, medical inflation is very high.”

But GOP leaders in both chambers are scrambling to figure out what pieces of a health care overhaul to put forward — and getting an earful from competing factions within their own party. It’s possible Senate Republicans this week won’t put a consensus GOP alternative up for a vote alongside the three-year extension Democrats want.

A plethora of rank-and-file options are under development, with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) backing a two-year extension of the subsidies with new eligibility restrictions, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wanting to provide more flexibility for health savings accounts and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) proposing to make it easier to deduct medical expenses on their income taxes.

“It’s a disaster,” Hawley said. “Health care, as it currently is, is too expensive for everybody.”

Katherine Hapgood and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

Bill Foster cools on challenging Maxine Waters

Published

9 hours ago

October 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Bill Foster is leaning against challenging Rep. Maxine Waters for the top Democratic spot on the House Financial Services Committee, according to two people with knowledge of his thinking who were granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

The Illinois Democrat has been considering a bid to topple Waters but has not made a final decision, the people said. The timeline for him doing so is unclear.

Democratic Rep. Sean Casten, also from Illinois, told Waters earlier this month that he plans to run against her, likely teeing up a major fight over the Financial Services role, which the California Democrat has held since 2013.

Most Financial Services Democrats on the committee have publicly backed Waters for the role.

Foster, who was first elected in 2008, previously discussed with Waters ways to reform the committee that would give subcommittee chairs more power to shape the panel’s agenda. A physicist with a doctorate, Foster is currently the top Democrat on a House Financial Services Financial Institutions Subcommittee.

A Foster spokesperson declined to comment.

Congress

Senate Democrats’ top super PAC spends in South Carolina for the first time

Published

9 hours ago

October 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Democrats’ top super PAC is pushing into South Carolina — just five days before the election.

Senate Majority PAC is putting $750,000 into digital ads to boost Democrat Annie Andrews, who they see as in an increasingly competitive position against GOP Sen. Darline Graham. The first spot could air as soon as Friday, and is set to attack Graham over rising costs and position Andrews as a fighter against corruption, according to plans shared first with Blue Light News.

The Chuck Schumer-aligned group’s investment comes as public polling shows a tightening race in the closing stretch. Republicans say they’re confident in Graham’s ability to hold the seat, in part because the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund recently pledged to spend at least $5 million in the race. President Donald Trump has already held two rallies in the state to boost his hand-picked senator.

“South Carolina is tightening, and Republicans know it — you don’t send $5 million and the president to a state if you’re not nervous,” SMP spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement.

“Darline Graham is an empty suit who was handed a Senate seat and has no idea what to do with it,” French added. “Annie Andrews will lower costs on gas, groceries, insurance, and housing. In a race this close, a late infusion of cash can make the difference, and that’s why we’re in.”

Representatives for Andrews and Graham did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the investment.

Even with the extensive outside support, Graham’s campaign has been weighed down by voter fatigue after several contentious primaries, questions about her political inexperience and an increasingly difficult national environment for Republicans.

The South Carolina spending marks Democrats’ newest late-stage push into deep-red Senate races as they look to leverage Americans’ frustrations with the cost of living and Trump’s agenda to keep expanding the map. If Andrews wins next week, it would mark the first time South Carolina elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1998.

Strong showings by former Gov. Roy Cooper in North Carolina and Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia have allowed SMP to draw down its spending in those erstwhile battlegrounds while pumping millions of dollars into traditionally red territory like Texas, Kansas and Mississippi.

Congress

Oklahoma’s next senator can be seated immediately after election, state AG rules

Published

9 hours ago

October 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The winner of next week’s Oklahoma Senate race will be able to take office immediately after the election, effectively ending Republican Sen. Alan Armstrong’s appointment before the current session of the Senate concludes, the state attorney general ruled on Thursday.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s ruling on Thursday could pave the way for Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), the heavy favorite in the race and a Trump ally, to be seated by early November.

Armstrong, a former energy executive, was appointed in March to temporarily fill the seat vacated by Markwayne Mullin, now Department of Homeland Security secretary.

Both Armstrong and Hern submitted memorandums to the state attorney general’s office in disagreement over when Armstrong’s appointment ends, with Hern arguing he should be able to take office before the beginning of the next Congress.

“Oklahoma law and the U.S. Constitution point to the same answer: the voters fill this seat,” Drummond said in a statement. “Oklahomans will choose their next senator at the polls on Nov. 3, and that person will be eligible to take office once the election is certified. This opinion gives the Governor and the Legislature clear guidance on how to proceed.”

This November’s election is for a full six-year term in the Senate. Mullin, a former member of the House, initially won a 2022 special election to complete the term of the Sen. Jim Inhofe, who retired early in January 2023.

Armstrong was not a candidate to replace Mullin; Oklahoma law bars Senate appointees from seeking election to a full term.

Drummond’s formal opinion, addressed to Gov. Kevin Stitt and Oklahoma state Senate President pro tempore Lonnie Paxton, effectively sides with Hern and points to a state statute, which directs the governor to appoint a person “to serve in such office until a successor is elected.”

“The Governor has no discretion to decline or delay certifying the election,” Drummond added.

A spokesperson for Armstrong’s office said they are reviewing the state attorney general’s opinion, and “in the meantime, Senator Armstrong’s full focus remains on passing comprehensive permitting reform to lower utility prices, grow the economy, and get America building again.”

Hern did not immediately respond to a request for comment.