Speaker Mike Johnson chalked up a series of wins on Wednesday as House Republicans skirted intraparty blowups and managed to pass a series of bills, including a $95 billion party-line budget blueprint and an annual defense policy bill. Wednesday’s votes came after the House GOP late Tuesday also passed a government funding extension meant to avert a potential shutdown at the end of September.
The GOP’s budget resolution passed in a 216-214 vote that had appeared to be threatened by complaints from some House conservatives that the plan lacks cuts to offset the new spending. Ultimately, two Republicans, Reps. Warren Davidson and Thomas Massie, and one independent, Rep. Kevin Kiley, voted against the measure, along with 211 Democrats.
Adopting the resolution is a key step toward Republicans’ third party-line reconciliation bill this Congress, a process that allows the GOP to bypass the threat of a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. The resolution allows for $60 billion in funding for the Pentagon and the war in Iran, another $13 billion for intelligence services, $12 billion in farm aid and $10 billion for election-related measures meant to incentivize the adoption of voter ID requirements.
Johnson and his House leadership team said in a statement that the resolution puts the GOP “on a path to enacting two fundamentally simple and crucial goals: securing American elections and strengthening our homeland by providing supplemental funding requested by the Administration to support our national defense and protect our nation’s food supply.”
Democrats blasted the GOP budget plan. “What we should be doing in this Congress is actually using our taxpayer dollars to make life more affordable for the American people,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said. “President Trump and Republicans in this House continue to act indifferent to the economic well-being of the American people and to actively do things that are hurting everyday Americans financially, like this reckless and costly war of choice, which is why we stand aggressively against it.”
The Senate would still need to adopt the same framework before Republicans can draft and seek to pass the reconciliation package. Senate GOP leaders reportedly may look to increase the military and farm funding provided in the package, while fiscal hawks remain concerned about the lack of pay-fors to offset the new spending. Any changes made in the Senate would have to be voted on again in the House.
Party leaders are already promising those deficit hawks a fourth party-line bill after the midterm elections focused on deficit reduction and combatting fraud in federal programs — a promise that has reportedly met with considerable skepticism.
House approves 2027 NDAA: The House also narrowly passed a $1.15 trillion defense policy bill for fiscal year 2027. The 216-212 vote saw six Democrats join with 209 Republicans in favor of the measure, while seven Republicans and 205 Democrats voted against it.
The annual bill setting the Pentagon’s priorities, called the National Defense Authorization Act, typically passes with strong bipartisan support. This year’s bill, however, failed to garner significant Democratic support as the two parties clashed over the White House’s push to boost defense spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, to a total of $1.5 trillion, including the $1.15 discretionary budget request and a partisan $350 billion supplemental boost.
Among its provisions, the NDAA would provide service members with pay raises ranging from 5% to 7%, depending upon their rank. It would also formally rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War.
Republicans also set up the defense bill to be merged with the SAVE America Act, the package of new voter restrictions that President Trump has made his top priority, before the legislation is sent to the Senate.
“This legislation provides our brave servicemembers with an overdue pay raise, strengthens our nuclear deterrence and missile defense – including construction of the Golden Dome – cuts $30 billion in wasteful spending, and revitalizes America’s defense industrial base to secure our safety, security, and prosperity,” Johnson said.
House approves CR to December 4: The House last night approved a Republican plan to extend federal funding to December 4, potentially bypassing the threat of a government shutdown at the beginning of the new fiscal year on October 1, weeks before the midterm elections. Six Democrats joined with nearly all Republicans to approve the bill, known as a continuing resolution, in a 220-205 vote.
Republican leaders reportedly took up the stopgap funding bill well ahead of the September 30 deadline in hopes of putting Democrats on the defensive in the inevitable government funding fight ahead of the elections. Republicans have said that Democrats are preparing to shut down the government. Democrats, meanwhile, are fuming over a Republican funding plan that was crafted without their input and lacks language to ensure that no new money goes toward the Trump administration’s controversial immigration enforcement crackdown.
Yet the House GOP plan also faces an uncertain outlook in the Republican-led Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune has made clear his plans don’t align with Johnson’s. Thune told reporters Tuesday that Senate appropriators are working on their own continuing resolution. Unlike the House bill, that plan would include “anomalies” to adjust funding for certain key programs. The White House sent a list requesting dozens of such exceptions to lawmakers this week.
Thune also told reporters that he would bring the Senate stopgap to a vote before the chamber’s August recess, though he also threatened to fund the government via a party-line reconciliation bill if Democrats don’t cooperate. That leaves the budget reconciliation plan on hold until government funding is settled.
Stock-trading ban cleared: The House also passed a bill to end stock trading by members of Congress. That bill, which was approved in a 232-198 vote, also included provisions requiring voter ID and proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote in federal elections.