OPINION:
Senate Republicans are poised to adopt a budget resolution to unlock the use of the budget reconciliation process to end the Democrats’ shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security with 51 Republican votes.
But it also provides a major chance for Republicans to cut additional spending, an opportunity they should not miss.
House Republicans can and should push for a better, more robust reconciliation bill that reduces the deficit and eliminates waste, fraud, and abuse. Greater fiscal discipline must remain a central objective if we are to save America.
Importantly, this can be done while meeting President Trump’s timeline to resolve the Department of Homeland Security funding impasse by June 1. There are six weeks until then, which is sufficient time to work within the arcane debate rules that apply to the congressional budget process.
This course will use the advantages of budget reconciliation to make conservative reforms to Democrat spending programs. Since this is an essentially partisan exercise, it is only possible when the GOP controls the House, Senate and White House.
It would be malpractice for Republicans to fail to take advantage of budget reconciliation every year when they have unified control of government. Spending cuts will only be enacted through reconciliation, and cutting spending through reconciliation is using the expedited procedure as intended.
Republicans succeeded in cutting spending in the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB). According to the recently released President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2027, the OBBB will reduce spending by nearly $2 trillion over the upcoming budget window.
Congress needs to build on that momentum. There’s plenty more that can be done to reduce the deficit by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, Heritage research reveals. For example:
• There’s wasteful spending on the Medicaid expansion population mandated by Democrats in the Affordable Care Act. Arkansas’s waiver to the mandate has shown that putting some of that population into exchanges instead of Medicaid both reduces cost and improves care without reducing the number of covered individuals. It could save $500 billion over 10 years.
• More reforms are available in food stamps. There’s the abuse of broad-based categorical eligibility by states (providing food assistance to those minimally attached to the welfare system) and potential outright fraud from allowing beneficiaries to self-attest they meet program requirements. Currently, states are not allowed to perform simple data matches to see whether the applicant is on the up and up, which invites fraud. Fixing these items saves $70 billion.
• The Federal Reserve will pay as much as $500 billion in interest to foreign banks on excess reserves deposited with the Fed. Foreign banks prefer to park excess balances with the Fed because their home nations may not pay interest on reserves or don’t pay market rates. Returning to the prior policy of not paying any bank interest on these reserves — which will encourage further lending to Main Street America — will eliminate $1 trillion of waste over the next decade.
It is also worth noting that failure to enact a comprehensive reconciliation bill at this time would mean the automatic restoration of funding for Planned Parenthood and other big abortion centers. The OBBB was able to secure a one-year moratorium on funding, and more than 50 abortion centers closed in the past year.
Unless Congress takes additional action, funding for big abortion will resume on July 4 … America’s 250th birthday.
Senators are correct that it is extremely difficult for Congress to move a reconciliation bill, so they argue House conservatives should allow them to move a “skinny” bill now and then we can do a deficit-reducing bill later.
The reality, however, is that in an election year, we’re even less likely to get another bite at the reconciliation apple.
The House does not have to go along with the Senate’s skinny framework. They can push for more spending cuts now — and not rely on a hypothetical reconciliation 3.0. Republicans have unified control of government, and they should use it to deliver on what Americans voted for in November 2024.
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Daniel Kowalski is director of the Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation.
