House Republicans unveiled a $95 billion budget resolution Wednesday that pours the vast majority of new spending into the Iran war and classified intelligence programs — with zero offsets and no exit strategy, while the nation runs a deficit approaching $2 trillion this year alone.
The 47-page outline is the opening move in a third reconciliation push, a legislative maneuver that lets Republicans steamroll Democratic opposition with a simple majority. Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed the plan after a White House meeting with President Trump this week. The Budget Committee takes it up Thursday morning.
The money breaks down like this: $60 billion for the Armed Services Committee to replenish stockpiles and fund the four-month-old Iran war; $13 billion for the Intelligence Committee to bankroll classified programs requested by the White House; $12 billion for Agriculture to assist farmers hammered by the war's economic fallout; and $10 billion for election-related measures tied to Trump's SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote.
NBC News framed the war as "escalating with no end in sight" and noted that the Iran conflict has driven up food and fertilizer prices while choking off shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. WEAU, citing the AP, noted the plan "does not seek any offsets to pay for the new spending" — a detail that should set off alarm bells for anyone who claims to care about fiscal discipline. The farm aid in the package is essentially a band-aid for economic damage the war itself is inflicting on American producers.
The uniparty habit is on full display. Democrats attacked the package along partisan lines — Rep. Brendan Boyle, the Budget panel's top Democrat, called it an "America Last" budget funding "the most unpopular war in American history." But the real tell is that Republican fiscal hawks are saying the same thing. Rep. Nancy Mace called it "$95 billion in new deficit spending, no offsets and not one provision to lower the cost of living." Rep. Warren Davidson posted on X that he expects the measure to be dead on arrival, according to The Hill.
Johnson framed the package as meeting Congress's "most basic responsibilities" on elections and defense. Budget Chair Jodey Arrington struck a more partisan note, saying Republicans would "stop Democrat obstruction" and "deliver on behalf of the freedom-loving people." Neither addressed the core question: what is the U.S. interest in the Iran war, what does victory look like, and when does the spending stop?
The reconciliation process limits what can be included — bills must relate to spending and tax issues — which constrains how much of the SAVE America Act can survive. But the $10 billion allocation signals the GOP's midterm priorities. Democrats counter that proof-of-citizenship requirements suppress turnout among married women, seniors, and minorities who lack ready access to the necessary documents.
The White House originally requested a $350 billion defense increase earlier this year. This package falls far short of that — which tells you even the Pentagon knows the political math is ugly. NBC noted the war's unpopularity; WEAU called the whole effort a "long-shot undertaking."
A nation nearly $2 trillion in the hole this year, with Americans paying more at the grocery store because of a war nobody voted to start, deserves an answer to a basic question before another $73 billion goes out the door to the Pentagon and the intelligence community: what's the endgame?
