Congressional Republicans face serious doubts that they can fund a war with Iran on their own, especially as the potential price tag reaches hundreds of billions of dollars.<\/p>\n
The alternative \u2014 relying on a handful of Democrats to push it through the Senate \u2014 looks no more likely as hostilities in the Middle East expand, energy prices rise and more Democratic lawmakers are turning against an unpopular war.<\/p>\n
In recent weeks, some in the GOP used the party-line budget reconciliation process to give new money to the Pentagon without needing to gather 60 votes in the Senate. But the revelation that the war funding request could reach $200 billion quickly cooled those expectations, given the political complexities of finding offsets for the spending and the procedural jumps it would require.<\/p>\n
The Senate Armed Services Chairman said, “It’s such a contradiction to make things fit into the reconciliation that perhaps the regular order is preferred.” roger vicar<\/a> (R-Miss.) said in an interview.<\/p>\n The latest doubts come after long-standing warnings from endangered Republican lawmakers that pushing another party-line bill could force them into a politically painful situation in the months before the midterms. Spending tens or hundreds of billions of dollars on war could lead Republicans to further cut safety-net programs, as they did in last year’s “big, beautiful bill” \u2014 creating a messaging advantage for Democrats.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s not going to happen,\u201d one House Republican, requesting anonymity to speak candidly, said of the second reconciliation bill. “Some people have to talk about it as a possibility and keep the issue alive.”<\/p>\n But many House Republicans argue that a party-line bill is the only viable option to give President Donald Trump the war funding he wants.<\/p>\n As they quietly consider whether to send more U.S. troops to the Middle East, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declined Thursday to dispute reports that the Pentagon is requesting $200 billion. first reported<\/a> By Washington Post.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s a small price to pay to make sure we stay on top,\u201d the president said in the Oval Office, adding that the military needs \u201chuge amounts of ammunition\u201d to carry out its mission in Iran and elsewhere around the world.<\/p>\n House GOP leaders and committee chairmen discussed the possibility of adding military funding to a potential party-line bill during a closed-door meeting at their policy retreat in Florida last week.<\/p>\n “Can we meet their priorities in appropriations in regular order? I think that would be impossible, because I don’t think Democrats are interested in supporting military spending right now,” the House budget chairman. jody errington<\/a> (R-Texas), a longtime reconciliation cheerleader, said in an interview this week.<\/p>\n At the moment, \u201cnot likely\u201d is underestimating the depth of Democrats’ dislike for war funding. Even senators who aren’t ruling out support for an emergency funding bill say they likely won’t consider it under current circumstances.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to see the details,\u201d Main Sen said. angus king<\/a>An independent who works closely with the Democrats. “To be honest, it would be hard for me to support it because I think this war was a mistake, was not justified, was not supported by Congress.”<\/p>\n The skyrocketing figure of $200 billion \u2014 which is more than the Pentagon funding in last year’s GOP reconciliation bill and more than any supplemental funding bill enacted in the post-9\/11 era \u2014 has some Republican hard-liners eager to push through another budget reconciliation bill. Many argue that this would pave the way for deep cuts in domestic spending that they oppose, including potentially cutting Medicaid and other social programs.<\/p>\n The representative said, “It would be very difficult to pass a very large supplement without paying.” andy harris<\/a> (R-MD), Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. \u201cWe could still save hundreds of billions of dollars from fraud, waste, and abuse in reconciliation.\u201d<\/p>\n Senate GOP appropriators are hoping for bipartisan buy-in for Pentagon funding and are eyeing disaster aid and farm aid as potential sweeteners for Democrats. Others now plan to deliver aid to Ukraine with broad Democratic support and uneven GOP buy-in.<\/p>\n Still others, including senators. lindsey graham<\/a> (R-S.C.), just want to challenge the Democrats to vote against defunding the military. He said, “I would hate to be the senator who denied the request… because you have troops in harm’s way.”<\/p>\n So far, most Democrats don’t seem deterred by threats or interested in horse-trading.<\/p>\n The representative said, “Look, holding us against our own interests is not something I would support.” mike quigley<\/a> (D-Ill.), a strong supporter of Ukraine aid.<\/p>\n House GOP leaders declined to raise their hand Thursday as they awaited Trump’s fiscal 2027 budget plan along with a formal request from the White House. majority leader in the house steve scalise<\/a> Said that war financing would be a subject of “conversation” at some point, “but it has not started yet.”<\/p>\n House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole<\/a> (R-Okla.) cautioned that the discussions are “all speculation” at the moment, while accepting the reconciliation “may be the only way” to get the Pentagon money through the Senate.<\/p>\n Across the Capitol, top Senate Republicans are not yet seriously considering trying to pass war funding across party lines \u2014 underscoring a long-standing division between House and Senate GOP leaders over how far they should go to advance an election-year reconciliation bill.<\/p>\n The reticence among some Senate Republicans is that there is no clear proposal yet that could garner 50 GOP votes, according to three people who asked to remain anonymous to disclose personal thinking. He says conservatives are introducing a series of proposals that lack broad buy-in and that could run afoul of the Senate’s strict reconciliation guidelines. And he hopes the second bill will reopen the party’s old wounds over compensation for spending cuts.<\/p>\n \u201cI would try and insist that we pay for it,\u201d Sen said. Ron Johnson<\/a> (R-Wis.), one of the party’s loudest deficit advocates.<\/p>\n But without a party-line package, Senate Republicans will have to convince enough Democrats to reach the 60-vote threshold, and they appear to be nowhere close.<\/p>\n