House Republicans on Wednesday released their blueprint for a $95 billion party-line package they hope to pass this summer to fund the military and farm aid.
The 47-page plan, a first step in unlocking a third GOP budget reconciliation bill this Congress, allows up to $60 billion in defense funding, including money to avoid a shortfall in servicemember pay; $13 billion for intelligence efforts; and $12 billion in farm aid. It also allows for $10 billion that Republicans could direct to election-related provisions as they look to enact elements of the SAVE America Act, their bill requiring proof of citizenship and ID for voters casting ballots in federal contests.
“Safeguarding American elections and strengthening our national defense are the most basic responsibilities of Congress and are supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
The budget resolution roughly lines up with an $87.6 billion supplemental funding request the White House sent last month, which included $67.1 billion for the military. The new framework does not include the larger $350 billion Pentagon funding boost Republicans have proposed as they aim for an unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense budget.
“A more ambitious effort was narrowed to address concerns of conservatives about adding to the deficit,” the Associated Press reports.
Racing to pass the plan: The narrower resolution is scheduled for a markup in the House Budget Committee on Thursday morning, as Johnson and Republican leaders race to try to pass the measure before a six-week August recess. The House and Senate both need to adopt the same budget framework to unlock the reconciliation process Republicans want to use. The aggressive timeline faces plenty of potential obstacles, though, as some in the party raise objections to the budget plan.
A ‘mockery’ of the budget process: Fiscal hawks, for example, still want cuts to offset at least portions of the proposed new spending. The package includes no such cuts or revenue increases, meaning that it would allow for $95 billion in increased deficits through 2036. That’s not likely to change at this point.
"A no-offset plan is dead-on-arrival, because, frankly, three of us would kill it," Republican Rep. Warren Davidson told Axios.
Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, also criticized the Republican plan for potentially adding billions to the debt in support of an unpopular war. And budget watchers slammed the lack of offsets, too.
“Lawmakers have once again decided to abandon any semblance of fiscal discipline and allow themselves to add more to our nation’s already massive national debt,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit that advocates for deficit reduction. “This budget resolution continues the recent trend of making a mockery out of the budget process – it’s a false budget purely intended to shuffle through increases in defense funding and other priorities.”
MacGuineas said that the GOP plan could add more than $100 billion to the national debt after factoring in interest costs.
“To require no offsets in this budget is baffling,” MacGuineas said. “The federal government is projected to spend more than $78 trillion before interest costs over the next decade, and Congress cannot bring itself to find 0.1% of that total to cut or any revenue to raise?”
House Republican leaders are reportedly emphasizing the Pentagon’s need for a speedy infusion of funding given the escalation of fighting with Iran and arguing that any effort to provide that funding via a more traditional bipartisan process would involve additional Democratic demands. Democratic votes would be needed to get any regular appropriations bill or an emergency supplemental package through the Senate.