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{"id":25778,"date":"2026-07-13T23:32:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T23:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/ron-johnson-is-full-speed-ahead-on-reconciliation-3-0\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T23:32:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T23:32:15","slug":"ron-johnson-is-full-speed-ahead-on-reconciliation-3-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/ron-johnson-is-full-speed-ahead-on-reconciliation-3-0\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron Johnson is full speed ahead on Reconciliation 3.0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/151822\" data-person-id=\"151822\">Ron Johnson<\/a> doesn\u2019t know when he will officially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/12\/ron-johnson-prepared-to-take-over-senate-budget-committee-after-grahams-death-00994167\" target=\"_blank\">take over as chair<\/a> of the Senate Budget Committee, a post left vacant by the sudden death Saturday of Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51186\" data-person-id=\"51186\">Lindsey Graham<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But the Wisconsin Republican is wasting no time getting ready.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;ve already met with Lindsey&#8217;s staff this afternoon,\u201d Johnson said soon after arriving at the Capitol on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>He acknowledged the gravity of his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/12\/lindsey-graham-dies-republican-us-senator-south-carolina-00994070\" target=\"_blank\">longtime colleague\u2019s loss<\/a> and said he understood the need to \u201ctake one step at a time.\u201d But he also said he is hoping to quickly pick up where Graham left off on a new party-line budget reconciliation bill \u2014 something Johnson has advocated for more than a year and is now getting a fresh push from President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>The president wants the legislation to send $350 billion to the Pentagon and enact a litany of other GOP priorities ahead of the midterm elections.<\/p>\n<p>While Graham was keen on delivering the defense funding by hook or by crook, Johnson is a veteran deficit hawk who told reporters Monday evening that identifying the maximum number of spending offsets \u201cwould certainly be one of my objectives\u201d for the developing legislation.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson said he is already in ongoing talks with House Budget Chair <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/259549\" data-person-id=\"259549\">Jodey Arrington<\/a> (R-Texas), who is planning to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/07\/13\/congress\/johnson-plans-first-move-on-gop-policy-bill-wednesday-00995219\" target=\"_blank\">advance a fiscal blueprint<\/a> for the GOP-only bill as soon as this week. Some Republicans are eyeing billions of dollars in savings from targeting purported fraud in Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs to offset any new spending.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson said he hasn\u2019t seen a draft of the House budget blueprint, which must be adopted in both chambers to unlock the party-line reconciliation process, but expects to be in touch with Arrington and White House officials as the process progresses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s a team sport,\u201d he said. \u201cI just want to do everything I can to organize the effort so we can succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Johnson said he is also vetting a House proposal related to voter-ID legislation from Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/32319\" data-person-id=\"32319\">Bryan Steil<\/a>, the fellow Wisconsin Republican who leads the House panel overseeing election matters. If found to comply with strict reconciliation rules, it could serve to partially sidestep the Democratic filibuster of the <a href=\"https:\/\/legislation.politicopro.com\/bill\/US_119_HR_7296?q=H.R.7296\" target=\"_blank\">SAVE America Act<\/a> \u2014 the GOP elections bill that Trump has repeatedly pushed Congress to pass.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;ve already given that to Budget Committee staff to kind of get their opinion on it,\u201d Johnson said of Steil\u2019s proposal. \u201cI mean, in the end, it&#8217;s going to be the parliamentarian that rules.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Ron Johnson doesn\u2019t know when he will officially take over as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, a post left vacant by the sudden death Saturday of Sen. Lindsey Graham. But the Wisconsin Republican is wasting no time getting ready. \u201cI&#8217;ve already met with Lindsey&#8217;s staff this afternoon,\u201d Johnson said soon after arriving at [&hellip;]<\/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-25778","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\/25778","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=25778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}