The House Budget Committee approved a fiscal 2027 budget resolution Thursday as the first step toward passing a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill to provide tens of billions of dollars for defense, farm aid and voting restrictions.

The panel advanced the GOP-backed budget resolution on a strictly party-line vote of 20-14 after rejecting 14 amendments, all offered by Democrats.

But in one sign of potential trouble as the resolution heads to the House floor, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a Budget member who also serves on the powerful Rules Committee, did not vote at Thursday’s markup. Roy and other conservative critics have expressed concerns that the resolution requires no offsetting spending cuts to keep the deficit in check, and that voter ID restrictions sought by President Donald Trump would have to get watered down to comply with the rules of the reconciliation process.

The concurrent resolution includes instructions to four House committees —Armed Services, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Agriculture and House Administration — directing them to draft legislation providing up to $73 billion in defense and intelligence funds to underwrite the war in Iran, $12 billion in aid to farmers, and $10 billion for legislation aimed at preventing voting fraud.

If adopted by the House next week – and if also adopted by the Senate — the budget resolution would allow for a reconciliation bill that spends up to $95 billion over 10 years, not including interest costs, without any offsetting cuts.

In an impassioned plea for support as the markup began, House Budget Chairman Jodey C. Arrington, R-Texas, said the reconciliation bill is needed because Democrats will not provide the support needed to pass a supplemental funding request sought by Trump that includes $67 billion to pay for the Iran war.

“We should be able to work collectively to stand with our troops,” Arrington said. “It will not happen … and if we don’t use reconciliation to just give baseline readiness, not Star Wars and Golden Dome and transformative modernizing of the military, just the bombs, bullets and battlefield readiness for our men and women in uniform, to finish the fight successfully and return home safely, that’s it.”

Arrington added that the reconciliation bill would “strengthen our food supply” by providing aid to farmers and “give confidence to the American people that there is in fact free, fair and accurate elections.”

The instruction to the House Administration Committee is intended to produce a measure similar to legislation pushed by Trump and Republicans, the so-called SAVE America Act, that would require proof of citizenship and identification to vote but that has been unable to get the support from Senate Democrats needed to become law.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., applauded the adoption of the resolution and its inclusion of defense and voting-related instructions. “This is the next step toward advancing the SAVE America Act — our party’s top legislative priority,” he said on X, formerly Twitter. “Democrats have chosen not to engage on these important issues. Ultimately, they’ll have to answer to the American people.”

Democratic resistance

Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan F. Boyle, the panel’s ranking Democrat, responded to Arrington’s speech by telling the committee he used to read fairy tales to his daughter and “I would try to come up with the most imaginative, wildest, most creative fairy tale I could come up with.”

“Mr. Chairman, I give you credit,” Boyle told Arrington. “The fairy tale you just told was so imaginative I could never come up with something as wild.”

Boyle slammed Trump and Republicans for not delivering on a promise to lower costs during the 2024 presidential campaign, which he blamed on Trump’s tariffs and a “reckless, idiotic, preemptive war on Iran.”

The 14 amendments offered by Democrats variously sought to repeal elements of the past two reconciliation laws enacted by Republicans, including reductions in the growth of Medicaid spending, cuts to federal funding of student loans and cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps. The amendments proposed paying for the spending increases with higher taxes on “the wealthy and corporations.”

One of the amendments sought to repeal Trump’s tariffs, and another to rescind funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection that was provided in the past two reconciliation packages.

Trouble ahead

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans continued to express skepticism about the effort Thursday, most prominently Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. 

Thune said reconciliation is a “risky proposition” because GOP defense hawks want more spending than the budget resolution allows and fiscal hawks want to see the new spending offset with cuts to other programs.

“It is a very uneven path,” Thune told reporters Thursday. “I can’t make any guarantees over here.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., one of the spending hawks, said in a post on X Thursday that “Our national debt is a runaway train. The next reconciliation bill should be fully paid for.”

Thune said the inclusion of the Agriculture Committee in the instructions will open Republicans up to difficult amendment votes as well. “It’s an option, and if forced to do it, we will see what the traffic will bear here,” he said.

Others appeared even more doubtful. “I don’t think a reconciliation bill will pass the Senate,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.

Aidan Quigley, Aris Folley and Savannah Behrmann contributed to this report.