House Republicans on Wednesday announced their blueprint for a filibuster-proof budget bill that will spend up to $95 billion on defense, restocking weapons used in the Iran war, aid to farmers and implementation of voter ID requirements.
The plan envisions a much smaller budget reconciliation package than House Republicans have spent the past few months discussing but is designed to avoid procedural and political pitfalls of a larger endeavor.
The House Budget Committee is set to mark up the budget resolution on Thursday, and GOP leaders are planning for a House floor vote next week.
The instructions contained in the budget are what unlock the filibuster-proof process known as reconciliation. The House and the Senate have to adopt an identical budget resolution before they can proceed with advancing the actual funding package.
The budget resolution the House released Wednesday provides instructions to the House Administration, Agriculture, Armed Services and Intelligence committees.
Any policies that fall outside the jurisdiction of those four committees cannot be added to the package.
The reconciliation instructions provide limits for how much each committee can spend. The House Administration Committee, which will craft the voter ID portion of the package, can spend up to $10 billion.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, has said the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process is the Republicans’ best opportunity to enact the president’s top priority, the SAVE America Act.
The House-passed version of the bill, which has stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Democrats, includes requirements for Americans to show proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID to cast a ballot.
President Trump had requested an expanded version of the bill that included a ban on universal mail-in voting and a crackdown on transgender policies, but Mr. Johnson appealed to him to accept a narrower version that could pass both chambers.
Using the budget reconciliation process will require Republicans to restructure the proof of citizenship and voter ID requirements to include a budgetary impact to pass muster under the process’ rules for skirting a filibuster.
Mr. Johnson has talked about creating a grant program to incentivize states to adopt the policies, but other Republicans fear that blue states will simply opt out.
The details of the bill do not need to be worked out until after the budget resolution is adopted.
In addition to enacting as much of the SAVE America Act as possible, Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process to pass emergency funding the Trump administration requested for the Iran war and to provide economic assistance for farmers.
Republicans believe Democrats will not help them pass the supplemental appropriations request the administration sent to Congress last month, so they are using the reconciliation process to avoid needing Democratic votes.
The White House asked for $67.1 billion for the Defense Department, including $21 billion for munitions replacements and $17.3 billion for operational costs related to the Iran war.
Republicans’ budget instructions provide flexibility to spend up to $73 billion.
The House Armed Services Committee can spend up to $60 billion, and the House Intelligence Committee can spend up to $13 billion. The latter is intended to cover funding for classified programs that fall under the administration’s defense request.
The House Agriculture Committee is instructed to spend up to $12 billion to fulfill the administration’s plan to send aid to farmers.
The White House requested $10 billion to provide temporary economic assistance for row and specialty crops planted this year and $1.1 billion to help Florida agricultural producers rebound from winter storm-related losses.
Mr. Johnson has discussed the budget blueprint with Mr. Trump, who has given his approval, senior House Republican leadership staff said.
The White House initially envisioned using the reconciliation process to pass $350 billion of its $1.5 trillion defense budget request.
House Republicans had been working toward that goal, but conservatives demanded that funding be offset and swing-district Republicans were uneasy about the breadth of spending cuts needed to do so.
With the GOP abandoning the plan to include $350 billion for defense in reconciliation, Mr. Trump will not get his $1.5 trillion defense budget this year.
However, if Republicans hold onto their House and Senate majorities after November’s midterm elections, they can try again in the next Congress.
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