With six months before the midterm elections, many congressional Republicans are hoping they’re not done legislating yet.
A party-line bill funding immigration enforcement and White House security measures is now on a path to passage. But many in the GOP are already making a wishlist for yet another bill they want to pass under the fast-track budget reconciliation process.
The imperatives, they say, are clear: Their party needs to do more to address cost-of-living matters before voters go to the polls in the fall.
“The American people universally want us to do more than what we’ve already done,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said in an interview.
Affordability, he added, “is the No. 1 issue that people are dealing with right now.”
It won’t be that easy. Not only are there different perspectives in the GOP over how to address high prices, the discussion over party-line legislation is tied up with a host of unrelated issues that could easily derail the delicate reconciliation process.
Those include funding for the ongoing war in Iran, tackling social service spending and a controversial elections bill that has stalled in the Senate — all of which have been subject of intraparty clashes this year.
While doubts have long persisted about the ability of the GOP’s thin House and Senate majorities to pass a followup to last year’s “big, beautiful bill,” the progress on the immigration enforcement bill has raised expectations that a third bite at the apple might be possible.
But nothing has motivated GOP lawmakers like the prospect of going into campaign season without having a robust agenda to run on — especially with the Iran conflict pushing fuel prices up about 50 percent in recent months.
Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) said he doesn’t want the war “to sideline us because of the fuel prices back here in America,” adding that “we’ve got to move quickly.”
“If we can get these affordability things fixed,” he said, “the American public will keep us in the majority.”
Here are five major areas of active GOP discussions:
Affordability sweeteners
If Republicans can agree on anything, it’s centering any additional reconciliation bill on addressing cost-of-living concerns. If the legislation comes together, it will likely be a grab-bag affair.
With a bipartisan housing bill stalled out for now, GOP lawmakers are discussing incorporating components of that measure into the party-line package that would benefit first-time home buyers, according to four people granted anonymity to share details of private conversations.
Members are also discussing allowing “portable mortgages” and other ideas aimed at addressing borrowing rates — something a top Trump pollster told Republicans to focus on as far back as December.
Many Republicans are also eager to address rising health care costs, even if the topic stands to prompt fierce GOP infighting.
“Health care reform should be a part” of any new bill, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) said in an interview. “That’s another thing that’s driving costs.”
While Republicans allowed enhanced Obamacare tax credits to expire last year and are highly unlikely to revive them, Wittman said other smaller-bore GOP policy ideas in the health care space could make it into law.
A ‘fraud’ crackdown
The most sweeping and controversial piece of the GOP reconciliation push surrounds an effort to root out alleged fraud in social service programs that many conservatives claim could amount to tens of billions of dollars.
House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) is cheerleading for the crackdown, which would focus on programs administered by states. Arrington is also eyeing some Obamacare cuts aimed at making the program more “efficient.”
An effort to roll back Medicaid and food-aid spending generated huge internal problems during last year’s megabill debate, but Arrington said the GOP could not skip a chance to crack down on wasteful spending.
“It’s all over the people’s government, and we’ve got to do what we did in SNAP and Medicaid, and make sure that the tax dollars are flowing to the people who need them — to American citizens who depend on these programs,” he said.
But there is wariness among more vulnerable Republican members who could be subject to a barrage of campaign attacks about safety-net cuts.
“Don’t mix a lot of other stuff in there that could put members in a precarious position back home,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) said in an interview, calling for a “very narrow” bill instead.
Iran war money
With Democrats unlikely to consent to any war funding, especially with hostilities unresolved, many Republicans want to add tens of billions of military dollars to a reconciliation bill to prevent a Senate filibuster.
Arrington, a fiscal hawk, said he expected Republicans to include “around $100 billion” to replenish military munitions amid the Iran conflict, along with additional defense funding.
“And then I think probably everything north of that is, how do we make our military more nimble, more effective, and how do we plan for deterrence and readiness in the future?” he added.
A larger Pentagon package could get more Republicans on board, but it would also force them to scramble for steep spending cuts to pay for it. A handful of at-risk Republicans are nervous about that idea, with some floating a separate package with new Ukraine aid as a way to entice some Democrats.
More tax cuts
The megabill was centered on massive tax cuts, and House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) is not about to pass up another chance to do more.
Some GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, are eyeing a cut on capital gains taxes by allowing taxpayers to adjust those gains for inflation.
Smith and Arrington, along with other committee chairs and senior Republicans, tried unsuccessfully to press Speaker Mike Johnson to expand the scope of the pending immigration enforcement bill to include tax cuts and other policies.
“Opening the tax code should be part of this exercise,” Arrington said.
Parts of SAVE America Act
With the elections bill known as the SAVE America Act stalled in the Senate for the foreseeable future, some Republicans want pieces of the legislation to be included in a third reconciliation package.
Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he plans to draft a fiscal blueprint for what’s being touted as “Reconciliation 3.0” with those pieces in mind. House Administration Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) has also circulated a list of election integrity proposals that could be added to another party-line bill.
But the conservative hard-liners who are pushing for the SAVE America Act are highly skeptical that any meaningful provision of that bill could survive the strict Senate budgetary rules governing what can be included in a reconciliation bill.
They instead want the Senate to take up the elections measure as is — even if it means discarding the filibuster.
