At their annual policy retreat in Florida this week, House Republicans again debated the possibility of following up on last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act with a second party-line budget reconciliation package. It’s not clear yet if they will try to do so, what would be in such a package and whether they can possibly pass another megabill given the narrow and fractious GOP majorities in the House and Senate.
Republicans have floated various ideas for what could be included in such a package, including supplemental military funding related to the Iran war and cuts Medicaid spending that were removed from last year’s bill because, as written, they failed to comply with Senate rules. House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington reportedly eyed stiffer “fraud prevention” measures for federal and state safety-net programs.
Some Republicans are highly skeptical that the various factions in the party can unite behind a second big bill, especially during a demanding election campaign season. “I’d love to do a second reconciliation bill, but I’d also love to be Brad Pitt,” House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith told Politico this week. “It’s never going to happen.”
President Trump notably hasn’t called for another reconciliation package, instead telling House Republicans this week that he wants the Save America Act election reform bill on his desk before he’ll sign anything else.
Still, House Speaker Mike Johnson and many in the party continue to push for another bill, even if it is smaller than last year’s, arguing that Republicans should try to make the most of their governing trifecta by pushing through another major bill. “I believe that reconciliation is the only option. Democrats are not going to vote for anything,” Rep. August Pfluger, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative congressional caucus, said in a radio interview this week. His group unveiled a proposed framework for a party-line bill earlier this year.
Johnson has made clear he’d like to try another reconciliation bill and has been trying to determine what specific measures would bring all Republicans together. “I mean, look, let’s be realistic, right? It will not be as big, but it can be just as beautiful,” Johnson said this week.
Ernst pitches $93.5 billion in savings: Against that backdrop, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa on Wednesday sent a letter to Johnson and Arrington, arguing that another reconciliation bill “provides a clear path forward to accelerate economic growth, deliver for rural communities, and root out fraud, waste, and abuse in federal spending.”
Ernst, who heads the Senate DOGE Caucus, laid out 14 bullet-pointed proposals that she said could generate at least $93.5 billion in savings. Among her recommendations: Extending the statute of limitations on Covid-era unemployment insurance fraud; rescinding unspent Covid funding; requiring federal employee unions to repay the government the cost of taxpayer-funded union time; imposing higher penalties on states with high rates of SNAP food aid overpayments; selling empty federal buildings across the country; enacting a $250 annual fee for owners of electric vehicles; and rescinding remaining funding provided for the U.S. Postal Service to buy electric vehicles.
Politico, which first reported Ernst’s letter, notes that it “signals that jockeying among Republicans has begun around what makes the cut in a second megabill — even if there’s scant evidence congressional Republicans can pull one off.”