Congress

As affordability concerns mount, Hill Republicans are struggling to act

Published

7 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

Johnson-backed plan to combine Pentagon and election bills advances to floor

Published

31 minutes ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Rules Committee advanced a procedural measure aimed at breaking an intra-Republican deadlock Monday night. But GOP leaders are still facing a major battle Tuesday to regain control of the House floor.

The panel approved on party lines a measure to set up Republicans’ $1.1 trillion defense policy bill, a government funding bill and other GOP bills for floor debate. It would then combine the Pentagon bill, once passed, with the contentious elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act and send it to the Senate as one piece of legislation.

That maneuver, telegraphed by Speaker Mike Johnson earlier Monday, is aimed at appeasing House GOP hard-liners who have blockaded the floor, demanding the Senate pass the elections bill that has languished there for months.

However, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, the Republican leading the blockade, said in an interview Monday before the Rules Committee acted that Johnson’s plan is not sufficient — raising the possibility she and allies could vote down the measure on the floor. Other House GOP hard-liners say there are other outstanding issues to battle over Tuesday.

Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Democrat, called the merger move “a big waste of time.” The panel voted down a motion by McGovern to remove the provision to combine the two bills in a party-line vote.

The Senate is set to debate its own version of the defense bill next month, and it is likely that the elections overhaul will be removed in negotiations between the two chambers — as McGovern acknowledged Monday and House GOP leaders privately concede.

“The Senate will just strip the SAVE Act out,” he said at the meeting. “There is a zero percent chance SAVE ends up in the [Pentagon bill] because of this rule today.”

The defense bill faces a tight vote if Republicans can pass the procedural measure. Most Democrats are expected to oppose the measure over its massive price tag, which they contend is wasteful.

The panel is set up debate on 312 amendments to the bill. The slate includes GOP measures to codify a Trump executive order to block transgender people from serving in the military, prohibit coverage of gender-affirming care, block aid to arm Ukraine and strip Democratic-backed protections for collective bargaining for Pentagon civilian workers.

The committee also voted down Democratic proposals to slash $150 billion from the bill’s topline and limit the war against Iran.

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

Congress

Pentagon and elections bills could be combined in bid to unfreeze House floor

Published

3 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he plans to deploy an unusual procedural maneuver in a bid to unfreeze the House floor this week, seeking to send the annual Pentagon policy bill and the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act to the Senate in a single package.

That is likely a recipe for a continued standoff between the two chambers over the SAVE America Act, which has stalled in the Senate for months due to internal GOP divides. Under Johnson’s plan, the annual defense policy bill, which typically passes every year with large bipartisan majorities, could become a collateral victim of the impasse.

Asked in brief interview if he had talked to Senate Majority Leader John Thune about his plans, Johnson replied, “I have to do my job in the House, and they’ve got to do their job in the Senate, so we’ll see what happens.”

Johnson is seeking to placate House conservative hard-liners, led by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who have threatened to oppose the procedural measures that give Republicans control of the floor unless they agree to tougher tactics meant to force the Senate into passing the elections bill.

House GOP leaders discussed the plan to merge the two bills over the weekend as Luna pushed to amend the defense bill directly.

She did not say in an interview Monday whether Johnson’s gambit would suffice: “We want it baked together, not able to be stripped out,” she said.

But the Senate is free to work its own will, and members of that chamber are likely to reject any defense bill that has the partisan elections bill attached. That would set the stage for GOP leaders to strip it out when the House and Senate hash out the differences between their competing Pentagon bills later this year.

Johnson, meanwhile, is pushing a separate plan to pass a slimmed-down version of the SAVE America Act through the party-line budget reconciliation process — an option hard-liners have all but rejected.

“I don’t think that that can be done,” Luna told reporters Monday.

He’s also facing another complication: The version of the SAVE America Act he is proposing to attach to the Pentagon bill doesn’t include the latest demands for the bill from President Donald Trump — including a near-total ban on mail voting that is opposed by many Republicans.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Congress

Top Trump officials face bipartisan questions in first all-member Iran briefings

Published

4 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Lawmakers of both parties questioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff Monday in the first broad congressional briefings on President Donald Trump’s Iran deal.

While Democrats asked some of the sharpest questions, participants in an afternoon conference call with House members said, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) at one point pressed the administration officials on the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium.

According to two people granted anonymity to disclose the private remarks, Witkoff and Rubio repeated assurances the administration has privately made to select lawmakers in prior briefings — that the goal is to negotiate a final deal that would prohibit Iran from keeping its highly enriched uranium.

The memorandum of understanding Trump signed earlier this month, they said, was meant to launch those negotiations. Witkoff, the people said, added that the technical team involved in that part of the talks was traveling from Switzerland to Qatar, where talks between the U.S. and Iran are set to happen Tuesday.

Democrats, meanwhile, pushed the administration for more details on what financial benefits Iran could reap under the memorandum — including proceeds from previously sanctioned oil sales.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) went back and forth with Rubio and Witkoff over the lifting of the oil sanctions, two other people granted anonymity on the House call said. The officials eventually cut off the conversation and ended the call.

At another point, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) raised concerns about Witkoff’s business interests in the Middle East as he’s negotiating with Iran, prompting a sharp defense from Rubio, those people said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked Rubio and Witkoff about the oil sanctions during a separate all-senators call Monday, saying in a statement afterward that they “confirmed to me that Iran will reap billions in oil revenue while retaining dangerous leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.”

“If this is the administration’s defense behind closed doors, Secretary Rubio should make it under oath, in public, before the Foreign Relations Committee,” Schumer added, calling the briefing “delayed, deficient, and devoid of details.”

An administration official granted anonymity to speak candidly countered on Schumer’s characterization, noting that he had previously gotten a briefing of the deal as part of a group of top leaders engaged on national security matters. Schumer, the official said, had the opportunity to ask multiple follow-up questions on the Senate call.

A separate group of White House officials briefed top congressional leaders and key committee chairs in a classified briefing in the Capitol later Monday.

The administration has faced bipartisan skepticism over multiple provisions of the memorandum of understanding — particularly the lifting of oil sanctions and a $300 billion reconstruction fund that many Senate Republicans fear will help fuel Iran’s military and regional proxies.

Rubio and Witkoff sought to ease concerns about the slow reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — the critical trade route whose closure has sparked higher fuel and fertilizer costs. Both officials said more mine removal is required, and Witkoff indicated that Iran broke the terms of the Trump-signed deal by launching a drone attack on a passing ship over the weekend.

They also sought to assure lawmakers that Iran has received no money under the memorandum — especially not directly from American sources. Administration officials have previously pledged in smaller briefings that the reconstruction fund won’t include U.S. funds.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) called the Senate briefing a “productive conversation” but said “much of what I heard today is similar to what I heard last week” during a dinner at Vice President JD Vance’s residence.