House GOP leaders are trying to make good on their promise to advance a long-shot, party-line package of conservative priorities by arguing it’s the only chance to pass pieces of President Donald Trump’s doomed elections bill. So far, their pitch is falling short.
Trump announced Wednesday he would not sign a major housing affordability measure until Congress passes the so-called SAVE America Act, which Speaker Mike Johnson and members of his senior leadership tried to leverage during their meeting later that same morning with Republicans on the House Budget Committee.
According to four people with direct knowledge of the closed-door discussions, however, fiscal hawks on the panel warned they would oppose any budget resolution — necessary to unlock the filibuster-skirting reconciliation process — unless it’s paid for on a yearly basis, and without budgeting gimmicks.
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a key Budget Committee Republican, told reporters as he left the meeting that he would vote against any budget blueprint that is not fully paid for in current savings “dollar for dollar” and “year for year.”
And Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.), another Budget Committee member, said that while the committees instructed to contribute policies to the reconciliation bill could include Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means, it’s “too early” to talk about what will be in the budget resolution or any timeline for consideration.
It essentially guarantees that House Republicans will fail to meet an ambitious deadline of adopting a budget resolution before the July 4 holiday, let alone passing a reconciliation bill ahead of the monthlong August recess.
A failure to proceed would be a blow to Republicans who have argued there are few other opportunities to notch conservative wins in advance of the midterms — not to mention deliver on Trump demands, from the SAVE America Act to funding his ongoing military operation in the Middle East.
Johnson has remained bullish that Republicans will be able to move ahead on “Reconciliation 3.0” — follow-ups to last summer’s tax and spending megabill and the immigration enforcement bill Congress cleared earlier this month.
He is specifically floating the possibility that Republicans could, in that next reconciliation bill, create a grant program providing money to states to encourage the adoption of REAL ID requirements in order to vote.
Johnson said he made this case directly to Trump, too, before the president ultimately canceled his scheduled ceremonial signing of the landmark housing package in protest over the lack of Hill momentum on the elections bill.
“House Republicans will pull together a reconciliation bill … that will have that,” Johnson told reporters of the grant program Wednesday. “That’s what we’re going to do.”
But members who attended the meeting Wednesday argued the REAL ID grant program was no substitute for enacting the full SAVE America Act, which has passed the House but does not have the support to move forward in the Senate.
Roy, for instance, said the grant program is “not the SAVE America Act.”
Still, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) mirrored Johnson’s optimism Wednesday, saying he believed House Republicans could come to an agreement on viable offsets by the end of this week and perhaps on what policies to include by the end of next.
There are enough fraud-tackling initiatives that could cover the cost of any “Reconciliation 3.0” legislation in full, Arrington insisted, while also doubting the entire package would be paid for given intraparty disagreements about how deep to cut into social safety net programs.
“We know the money’s there. The question is, do we have the political will as a conference to do those things,” Arrington said. “We need everybody on the same page.”
There are other major policy disagreements, too, that show few signs of being quickly resolved.
After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth briefed members of the Republican Study Committee on Wednesday afternoon of the Pentagon’s $350 billion funding request as part of another reconciliation bill, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) suggested he would support such a cash infusion — but wanted the administration to agree to replace the brigade in Eastern Europe.
Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), meanwhile, has said he wants the funding to be audited before agreeing to vote for it.
Some Republicans are pushing for defunding Planned Parenthood to be a part of any future reconciliation package, too — a politically charged demand for vulnerable incumbents to swallow.
“When we have something, I’ll start calculating the odds, but so far they haven’t put anything together,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in an interview this week. “It’s all a pretty vague concept.”
