House Republicans Unveil $95B ‘Reconciliation 3.0’ Blueprint

Speaker Mike Johnson
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Sipa USA
By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey

Happy Wednesday! The Senate held a series of high-profile - and at times combative - confirmation hearings today. Lawmakers on the Judiciary Committee grilled Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general seeking to get the nation's top law enforcement job on a permanent basis, while the Intelligence Committee took up the nomination of Jay Clayton to be director of national intelligence. And the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee questioned Dr. Erica Schwartz, President Trump's pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We've got some details on that action and a look at a new GOP spending bill.

House Republicans Unveil $95 Billion 'Reconciliation 3.0' Blueprint

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.

Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, 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.

"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.

Todd Blanche Challenged Over $1.8 Billion 'Anti-Weaponization' Fund and Trump's IRS Lawsuit

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday that the administration's controversial $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund is "dead," but acknowledged that the underlying deal made at the conclusion of President Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS remains "enforceable."

Appearing at a Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination for the position of attorney general, Blanche faced questions about the lawsuit and its highly unusual resolution. A federal judge ruled earlier this week that the suit, which was sparked by the leak of the president's tax returns, was an "improper" use of the legal system by Trump. The judge banned Trump and his family from citing a so-called settlement agreement signed by Blanche that provides immunity from IRS investigations for the president, his family and their businesses.

Lawmakers from both parties expressed outrage over the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund, which was intended to provide payments to people - including many Trump supporters - who claimed they had been targeted unfairly by federal investigations. Some lawmakers have characterized the proposed pot of money as a "slush fund" that Trump would use to pay off people in his orbit.

Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who lost his bid for another term after Trump backed a rival, told Blanche that he would like reassurance that there is no way the fund could ever come into being.

Blanche said that the White House has abandoned the effort to create the fund, though he also said that Trump could still sue to enforce the agreement.

"They could potentially say that, I suppose, that we breached by not moving forward," Blanche said, adding that he was not aware of any efforts by Trump or related parties to claim that the agreement had been violated.

"But just to be clear," Cornyn replied, "the president of the United States, who was the plaintiff in this lawsuit, has not agreed in writing to delete the weaponization fund, and there's no guarantee that he or one of the other plaintiffs might raise that issue by way of a lawsuit and a breach-of-contract lawsuit in the future?"

Blanche agreed that a lawsuit is still possible, though he doubted that the plaintiffs would be successful.

Blanche, who was once Trump's private lawyer, also said that the IRS immunity agreement that is part of the so-called settlement does not exempt the president and his family from complying with the law, but instead is "an agreement that any past audits would end."

A key vote: Blanche cannot afford to lose even a single Republican vote on the Judiciary Committee, and Cornyn said Wednesday that he has not yet made up his mind. "[P]art of what I wanted to do is make sure that we understood what the lay of the land was with regard to the weaponization fund, and it's not dead," Cornyn told reporters. "It could be revived and I think he confirmed that."

Another concern among some lawmakers is the overlap between Trump's personal business and the country's public interests. Along with Trump, Blanche has been accused of blurring the line between the two.

Asked by Republican Sen. John Kennedy if he considered Trump to be his friend, Blanche replied, "I'm his lawyer," though he quickly edited his comment to say that he "was his lawyer."

Quote of the Day

"You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you ask to lead America's intelligence community? Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question? To have to indulge the president's delusions?"

– Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, questioning Jay Clayton, President Trump's nominee to serve as director of national intelligence, after Clayton refused to explicitly say Wednesday that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

Ossoff was one of four senators to press Clayton on the election question at a Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing. Clayton, who is currently the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, repeatedly declined to say who won, instead offering: "I am not an election denier. Joe Biden was certified."

Trump continues to claim without evidence that the 2020 election was rigged. He is set to deliver a speech to the nation Thursday night that will reportedly focus on election security and could again dispute the 2020 loss that Trump has not accepted.

Clayton also faced questions about an administration push to dramatically scale back the size of the office he would oversee. He told lawmakers that he believes the DNI should serve as a "board of directors" for the intelligence community, dealing more with oversight than operations.

Clayton is seen as very likely to be confirmed, especially given the intense desire among Democrats to remove Bill Pulte, the Trump loyalist currently serving as acting director of national intelligence. Republicans also hope that having Clayton replace Pulte will pave the way for the renewal of a key spy powers law.

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