Congress
Republicans take first step to move $95B party-line package
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.
The campaign finance arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is curtailing online contributions to House Democrats who voted to cut Israel aid this week, in the latest rift between the party and the influential advocacy group.
As of Friday afternoon, an online portal for AIPAC’s political action committee removed donation buttons for more than a dozen House Democrats from a page that lists incumbents who “stand with Israel.”
The members now listed without donation buttons include Reps. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 2 House Democrat; Joe Neguse of Colorado, another member of leadership; and Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, who renounced AIPAC money after the vote.
“AIPAC members are deeply appreciative of their representatives who stand on principle and are disappointed by those who don’t,” AIPAC spokesperson Deryn Sousa said in a statement to Blue Light News.
The move is further evidence of a major shift in AIPAC’s political relationship with House Democrats. Ahead of the midterms, several hard-left progressive candidates have toppled incumbents in primaries after hammering them for accepting AIPAC money, leaving many Democrats to conclude that ties to the pro-Israel group are politically toxic.
According to a snapshot from the Internet Archive, the donation buttons were active as recently as July 6. At that point, the portal also included praise for former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
“We thank Congresswoman Pelosi for her support for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” a caption on the portal read on July 6 after noting Pelosi is not running for reelection. As of Friday, the thank you was gone — as was a thank you to Pelosi’s fellow California Democratic Rep. Julia Brownley.
Spokespeople for the House Democrats did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On Wednesday, more than 100 House Democrats voted for an amendment to a State Department funding bill that would have cut U.S. aid to Israel, marking a massive break in the party’s once unshakable support for the Jewish state. Many of those members cited frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza. The amendment failed, with 98 Democrats including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York opposing it.
Ryan posted on X Wednesday that he expected groups like AIPAC would no longer support his future campaigns and that “frankly, I don’t want their support.”
“Hardline stances that refuse to stand up to a corrupt and increasingly dangerous Netanyahu regime have no place in our politics,” he said.
A federal judge declared Friday that the Trump administration can’t cancel grants based on new rules or goals established after the fact — in a blow to its efforts to terminate billions of dollars already promised.
U.S. district judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, denied the Trump administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by 20 states, three governors and the District of Columbia challenging the cancellation of billions of dollars in federal grant awards since President Donald Trump was inaugurated last year.
Federal law does not allow the “terminations of awards based on new program goals or agency priorities that an agency identifies after granting the award,” the court concluded.
The ruling comes as lawmakers in both parties, including Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), urge White House budget director Russ Vought to delay plans to overhaul the approval process for federal grants. The Trump administration is proposing a new regulation that would put political appointee in charge of approving or mixing awards for federal dollars.
House GOP leaders released text Friday for a bill to fund the vast majority of the federal government from the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1 until after the midterm elections — bypassing the bipartisan appropriations process and daring Democrats to pick a shutdown fight months before voters head to the polls.
Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday he plans to put the legislation on the floor next week.
The measure would fund the government through Dec. 4 and, as Republican leaders promised, would not include additional policy riders or unrelated provisions.
The text released Friday also does not include President Donald Trump’s top policy priority, the partisan elections overhaul and voter ID measure dubbed the SAVE America Act.
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