By David Morgan
WASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) – A Republican-controlled committee in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday unveiled a $95 billion blueprint for a new spending package that would include $73 billion in new funds over 10 years for defense and intelligence operations.
The 47-page budget resolution, which the House Budget Committee is scheduled to consider on Thursday, would also authorize decade-long expenditures of $10 billion to incentivize states to implement portions of Trump’s SAVE America Act and $12 billion for agriculture.
House Republican leaders hope to pass the budget resolution next week and move quickly to enact the spending plan through a budget reconciliation bill intended to circumvent opposition from Democrats in the Senate.
But it is not clear how easily the blueprint or the spending package it would authorize could pass either the House or the Republican-led U.S. Senate, which both have narrow majorities that could be vulnerable in November’s midterm elections.
“We’re working through it with members … to build consensus,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters at a press conference.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has downplayed expectations of his chamber easily passing another budget reconciliation bill, which would be the third since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
It is also not clear how strongly Trump himself would endorse the measure, despite House Republican leadership meetings at the White House and Pentagon this week.
The resolution, unveiled a day after Senate Democrats blocked a $1.15 trillion annual defense policy bill, falls well short of the $350 billion in additional defense spending that Trump has demanded. The House blueprint calls for only $60 billion for defense and $13 billion for intelligence.
Details of how the money would be used were not spelled out. But Republican leaders have talked about funding the Iran war, replenishing U.S. military weapons stockpiles depleted by the Middle East conflict, boosting military readiness and strengthening the defense industrial base.
Trump has also called for billions of dollars to help U.S. farmers facing higher fuel and fertilizer costs from the Iran war.
House Republican leaders hope to use reconciliation to pass portions of the SAVE America Act, a contested package of election restrictions that Democrats strongly oppose. The Republican strategy is to enact photo ID, proof of citizenship and other requirements by offering states grant money as an incentive to adopt such measures.
Over the next decade, the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget warned, the spending would add more than $100 billion to the U.S. debt, which now stands at $39.4 trillion, according to the Treasury.
(Reporting by David Morgan, Editing by William Maclean and Philippa Fletcher)
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