House unveils budget plan with $100B boost for defense
Unlike the Senate — which opted for a two-bill strategy that starts with approving additional funds for defense, border security and energy — the House is pursuing what Trump has called “one beautiful bill” that would also raise the debt limit, and include tax cuts and government spending cuts.
(L-R) U.S. House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) leave after a news briefing at the U.S. Capitol on November 2, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Tuesday revealed a budget resolution that would add $100 billion in defense funding, one-third less than the Senate blueprint which would raise defense spending by $150 billion.
What that means exactly for major weapons programs is unclear. Details of what that funding would pay for will be determined by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees only if the resolution is adopted by both the House and Senate — an open question, given the House and Senate’s competing approaches on how best to pass President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Republicans intend to use a process called budget reconciliation to move a laundry list of Trump spending priorities through Congress without threat of filibuster. Unlike the Senate — which opted for a two-bill strategy that starts with approving additional funds for defense, border security and energy — the House is pursuing what Trump has called “one big beautiful bill” that would also raise the debt limit by $4 trillion, include $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and cut government spending.
“This budget resolution is a key step to start the process in delivering President Trump’s America First agenda,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement on X. “With nearly every House Republican directly engaged in this deliberative process, this resolution reflects our collective commitment to enacting the President’s full agenda—not just a part of it.”
The House Budget Committee will take up the resolution on Thursday as its Senate counterpart works through its own plan in hearings scheduled for today and Thursday.
RELATED: Senate Republicans release budget plan with $150B more for defense
At the start of the Senate Budget Committee’s markup process for their budget resolution this morning, chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said lawmakers must move with haste to pass additional funding, and implored his House Republican colleagues to consider backing the Senate version of the bill.
“The problem we have now is that ICE is running out of money,” he said. “To my colleagues in the House, I hope you can pass one big beautiful bill … but we gotta move on this issue.”
Over the course of the hearing, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle broadly expressed support for additional defense funding — although some Democrats questioned whether reconciliation was needed as a vehicle to boost money for defense.
“I’m on the armed services committee. Do you need to use reconciliation to do defense spending?” said Sen. Tim Kaine, R-Va. “We not only spend hundreds of billions on defense, in a bipartisan agreement, just last year, we twice added to that. … Let’s just be clear about what this is about: This is an effort to amass savings off the backs of everyday people whose programs are cut, plus tariff revenue, and to direct all of that towards tax cuts for the wealthiest.”
Sen. Tom Kennedy, R-La, expressed confidence in Johnson and said he wanted to see lawmakers come together on a single tactic for getting a reconciliation bill across the line.
“I just want to see us pass something. I don’t see this as a competition,” he said. “Weakness invites the wolves. We have to spend more money on defense.”
