$95B Iran war package clears first hurdle
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans on the House Budget Committee advanced a $95 billion package Thursday for the Iran war, farm aid and President Donald Trump’s push for strict new voter ID requirements, moving forward on a party-line vote despite trouble in the full House -- and the Senate.
Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington framed the proposal as one last push to deliver for voters ahead of the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. It advanced on a vote of 20-14.
“We are rallying to finish what we started when the American people sent us here,” said Arrington, R-Texas.
With Iran war funding making up the bulk of the package, some $60 billion, Arrington acknowledged that people can debate “why we’re there” in the overseas conflict. But he said the money is needed for basic supplies -- “just the bombs, bullets and battlefield readiness for our men and women in uniform to finish the fight successfully and return home safely -- that’s it.”
The resolution, which sets out instructions for the various congressional committees to draw up proposals, also calls for $13 billion for Intelligence, $12 billion for Agriculture, and $10 billion for Administration, which handles voting and elections.
The proposal is the third budget reconciliation package Republicans in control of Congress have put forward this session to steamroll Trump’s priorities past Democratic objections using a legislative procedure that allows for simple majority votes for passage.
It’s the same process House Speaker Mike Johnson used to pass Trump’s big tax cuts bill last year and to advance Homeland Security money after Democrats refused to fund the department following the deaths of Americans protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions earlier this year.
Johnson is pushing the effort almost single-handedly, without full backing from his slim House Republican majority or the Senate. He held lengthy meetings with Trump this week at the White House and hosted a private session for Republicans at the president’s Camp David retreat to hash out details.
But the 47-page package remains a long-shot effort -- too meager for some, too costly for others -- ahead of voting in the full House expected next week.
Key Republican Rep. Chip Roy, an influential member of the Freedom Caucus who has expressed reservations about the package, did not vote at the Budget Committee session, as his home state of Texas deals with flooding.
Democrats are ready to vote against the proposal, as they did Thursday during committee action.
Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, said the document, some 6,500 words, never once mentions the issue that’s top of mind for many Americans: affordability.
“People know this is a failed presidency, and a failed Republican majority,” Boyle said.
Democrats offered more than a dozen amendments to the package during the hourslong Budget Committee session and raised questions about how the new spending will ultimately be paid for -- either via budget cuts to other programs or by piling onto the nation’s debt.