Republicans worry about uphill climb in paying for next GOP-only bill

Fiscal hawks are airing concerns about finding cuts to offset the spending in a second GOP-only package Republicans are looking to assemble, which could include funds for parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the military operation in Iran and other policy initiatives.

Lawmakers are still discussing the specifics of what should be in such a bill and haven’t settled on a final topline number. But it is expected to carry a hefty price tag. The Pentagon estimated that just the first six days of the Iran strikes cost more than $11 billion and that operation is stretching into its fifth week.

The Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of conservatives in the lower chamber, said last week that they want any final product to be “fully paid for with commonsense offsets that meet the President’s request.” 

But some House Republicans acknowledge that securing those offsets may prove difficult, particularly as competing factions within the GOP conference push to include their own priorities in the bill.

“Pre-conflict Iran, I would have told you I had kind of a rough concept of what we could do for further reductions of fraud and achieving some savings, and you know, some ideas on how to do that with some other defense priorities the president had already announced,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas),  a member of the House Budget Committee and policy chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said.

“I still think there’s some framework there that you could pursue, but I will say that, you know, the tenor of what I’m hearing in this town right now is not overly favorable towards something that would fully pay for itself,” Roy said.

He added, “We did this dance last year. We made a lot of compromises.”

Republicans are aiming to pass their latest partisan package through the same mechanism, called budget reconciliation, they used to enact President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) last year. Reconciliation allows a party in control of the House, Senate and White House to sidestep the Senate filibuster and pass a bill without any support from the minority party.

Iran funding will likely be the most divisive part of the package. The Pentagon had asked the White House to approve a more than $200 billion supplemental request to Congress to fund the military conflict. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters earlier this month that he thinks that number “could move,” but added, “it takes money to kill bad guys.”

GOP leaders are projecting optimism that they’ll find a way to offset the spending.

House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) told reporters when asked where he would find offsets that, “I’ve got $600 billion on a list in my drawer in my desk, and there’s probably three times that.”

Arrington said he aims to root out alleged fraud in federal entitlement programs, including cases where ineligible recipients receive benefits, through stricter oversight to help offset the bill’s cost.

Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger (R-Texas) said in a statement that, “Billions in waste, fraud, and abuse are hiding in plain sight. Reining in this blatant taxpayer theft is just one example of how to fund this once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver for the American people.”

Arrington has also proposed funding for ObamaCare “cost-sharing reductions” in the bill, a complicated move that will lower premiums for some people but decrease the overall amount of subsidies and make out-of-pocket premiums more expensive for others. 

“Of course, we have enough money to offset not only operating expenses in a supplemental but a capital investment to modernize the military,” Arrington said. “But we should do it responsibly.”

But those assurances have done little to quell concerns among some members.

Asked whether he was concerned that there might not be enough offsets to balance the costs in the bill, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said, “Oh, absolutely.”

Burchett said that adding Iran funding to the reconciliation bill could potentially compromise his vote on the package.

“I’d like to see offsets on Iran. That’s my thing,” he said.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said, “You’ve got areas you can cut. It’s just like a family budget. You can find areas. Now, you may not want to, but every dollar here has people who just want to keep it in. So it’s always a struggle.”

Arrington told reporters last week that, “I think we…have to make sure that our conference has the political will to offset these things.”

The idea of passing a second reconciliation bill is broadly popular across the GOP conference in both chambers. But the margins to do so are narrow.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) can only afford to lose one vote on any bill, assuming that all members are present and Democrats are unified in opposition. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, and Massie has been an outspoken opponent of the Iran conflict.

Still, House GOP leadership is moving full steam ahead with the bill. 

Asked whether he thinks there’s enough offsets to balance funding in the bill, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) said, “I think when you have $2 trillion in deficits, there’s plenty out there. And when you have $39 trillion dollars in debt that keeps accumulating at a rapid pace, there’s going to be plenty of opportunities to fund everything, so we just have to get the right policies in there.”

Hern said the biggest challenge will be striking a balance within the GOP conference, a point echoed by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), who stressed that reaching a workable compromise will be critical, just as it was when Republicans passed the OBBBA last year.

“You had both sides, you have the fiscal hawks like myself come to an agreement with the people worried about spending reductions. I think we struck a perfect balance, because we were able to find waste, rotten abuse within the Medicaid system…that was the OBB. I think we can do the same thing again in another reconciliation,” Burlison said. 

Emily Brooks contributed.

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