House GOP Passes $95 Billion Reconciliation Framework While Senators Say the Whole Thing Might Be Dead on Arrival

House Budget Committee Republicans passed a budget resolution on July 16 to kickstart a third reconciliation bill, according to a memo from NLIHC senior policy director Kim Johnson. The framework calls for roughly $95 billion in new spending: $60 billion for defense, $13 billion for intelligence operations, $12 billion in farm relief, and $10 billion tied to the SAVE Act's implementation.

The Pentagon requested $350 billion in additional defense funding, according to Breaking Defense. This bill delivers $60 billion. That leaves a $290 billion gap between what the military says it needs and what House Republicans are currently willing to put on paper.

Speaker Mike Johnson wants a House floor vote as soon as this week, per the NLIHC memo. But with Democrats unanimously opposed and a razor-thin GOP majority, Johnson needs nearly every Republican to vote yes. Several fiscal conservatives are already balking at the price tag because the bill includes zero offsetting cuts.

Senators aren't buying it

A bipartisan group of senators at the Farnborough Airshow this week made clear they don't think this bill is going anywhere fast, according to Breaking Defense. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who sits on both Armed Services and Appropriations, put it bluntly: "There isn't going to be a third reconciliation package. So anything that's in there is not going anywhere." She said Congress needs to get disciplined about what's actually a priority.

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, said he's "not certain there's going to be a reconciliation bill that passes the House and the Senate." Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., is worried specifically about Golden Dome, the missile defense program the Pentagon wants funded through reconciliation instead of the regular budget. If reconciliation dies, Golden Dome could lose its funding path entirely unless Congress moves it into annual appropriations.

Only Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., sounded optimistic, telling Breaking Defense "the military needs money, and the only way to get it to them in this environment is through reconciliation." Even he said he'd prefer a bigger number than what the House is proposing.

Honeywell Aerospace CEO Jim Currier told Breaking Defense he finds the situation "concerning, because I think reconciliation is not going to happen." Currier said Honeywell will be fine regardless since much of what it builds has commercial as well as military uses. Not every defense contractor has that cushion.

The offset fight is already here

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who is set to take over as Senate Budget Committee chair following Sen. Lindsey Graham's death, told Politico he expects a fight over the House's $95 billion plan because it includes no spending cuts to pay for it, according to Just The News. Johnson said he's been a committed deficit hawk and expects other committee members to demand offsets too.

That sets up a direct clash with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has said cuts to health care or other safety-net programs could leave vulnerable Republicans exposed right before the midterms, per Just The News. House GOP leadership is reportedly trying to sidestep that fight entirely by floating a fourth reconciliation bill, to be taken up after the November midterms, that would pair new defense money with the offsets they're avoiding now, according to NOTUS reporting that cited comments from Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers, R-Alabama, and Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas.

Rogers told NOTUS that unplanned costs from operations in Iran and Venezuela blew a "big hole" in the 2026 Pentagon budget that has to get filled immediately, warning that without the money "there's going to be training they just can't do." The House Armed Services Committee and House Intelligence Committee have until Sept. 11 to write legislative text capping their pieces at $60 billion and $13 billion respectively.

The SAVE Act is riding along, and that's where this really stalls

The resolution's $10 billion for the SAVE Act, a voter ID and eligibility verification measure the White House has pushed, is drawing hard opposition in the Senate. According to the NLIHC memo, Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mitch McConnell have all previously voted against the SAVE Act, alongside every Senate Democrat.

Tillis was explicit on the Senate floor, saying that if a reconciliation bill arrives from the House with SAVE Act provisions tucked in, "I will use every device I have available to slow down the wheels of government until people cop a clue and do the math." That's a substantive fight over how elections get administered, happening inside a defense funding bill.

Supporters of the SAVE Act argue voter eligibility verification is basic election security, no different from ID requirements used across ordinary civic and financial life. Opponents, including NLIHC's Our Homes, Our Votes campaign and more than 130 organizations that signed on to a February 2026 letter, call it voter suppression. No fraud claims tied to this specific SAVE Act funding provision are cited in available reporting, so the dispute here is over policy design and access, not a proven fraud case either way.

Vice President J.D. Vance told an interviewer that Republicans decided reconciliation "was not the place" to codify anti-fraud task force provisions, which suggests even the White House sees the SAVE Act money as a political liability inside this bill.

The House resolution still needs floor votes in both chambers before committees can write actual legislative text. Given the doubts from Shaheen, Moran, Fischer, and Ron Johnson, and the flat opposition from four sitting or incoming Senate Republicans on the SAVE Act piece, the $95 billion framework passed by committee on July 16 is a long way from becoming law.