{"id":19810,"date":"2026-03-10T15:16:59","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T15:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/house-budget-chair-eyes-more-safety-net-cuts-for-second-megabill\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T15:16:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T15:16:59","slug":"house-budget-chair-eyes-more-safety-net-cuts-for-second-megabill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/house-budget-chair-eyes-more-safety-net-cuts-for-second-megabill\/","title":{"rendered":"House Budget chair eyes more safety-net cuts for second megabill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DORAL, Florida \u2014 \u201cFraud prevention\u201d in federal and state safety-net programs should be the main target of a new Republican reconciliation bill, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington<\/a> said in an interview Tuesday where he also called for reviving Medicaid spending cuts provisions that fell out of last year\u2019s GOP megabill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole kit and caboodle of welfare is $1.6 trillion in our budget,\u201d Arrington said on the sidelines of the House Republican policy retreat. \u201cBut it’s also not just welfare \u2014 it’s programs across the federal government that states need to be responsible [for].\u201d<\/p>\n

Arrington said Republicans needed to act after federal officials identified potentially billions of dollars of potential benefits fraud in Minnesota. But the suggestion of additional cuts to safety-net programs comes as House Republicans vulnerable in the upcoming midterms deal with the political fallout of the Medicaid and food-aid cuts enacted last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to listen to everything,\u201d said Rep. Rob Wittman<\/a>, a Virginia Republican battling to keep a district that could be redrawn in Democrats\u2019 favor. \u201cI think we need to be very thoughtful about what we do and how we go about doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arrington said he wanted to revisit several proposals to reduce Medicaid spending that did not end up complying with strict Senate rules for a filibuster-skirting budget package. He suggested Senate Republicans didn\u2019t spend \u201ca lot of time\u201d last year reworking them to pass muster.<\/p>\n

Arrington also said he wants to identify Pentagon spending cuts that would offset new investments President Donald Trump wants for the military \u2014 something that will likely trigger pushback from GOP defense hawks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there’s certainly waste at the Pentagon,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the president and his team want to retool it, modernize it, but there’s also going to be a capital investment associated with it. I just want to make sure that whatever we’re spending, we’re offsetting.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> has repeatedly promised GOP hard-liners he will push for a new reconciliation bill, he continues to face serious internal doubts \u2014 especially after Trump failed to mention it once<\/a> in a nearly hourlong address to Republican lawmakers Monday.<\/p>\n

A senior House Republican, granted anonymity to candidly discuss internal conversations, said lawmakers shouldn\u2019t \u201ckill themselves” to do one given Trump\u2019s lack of interest. And a key committee chair remains publicly skeptical of the push, noting Tuesday the House GOP majority is even thinner than it was in July, when the megabill passed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’d love to do a second reconciliation bill, but I’d also love to be Brad Pitt,\u201d Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith<\/a> (R-Mo.) said. \u201cIt’s never going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DORAL, Florida \u2014 \u201cFraud prevention\u201d in federal and state safety-net programs should be the main target of a new Republican reconciliation bill, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington said in an interview Tuesday where he also called for reviving Medicaid spending cuts provisions that fell out of last year\u2019s GOP megabill. \u201cThe whole kit and caboodle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}