Republicans worry about uphill climb in paying for next GOP-only bill

Fiscal hawks are airing concerns about finding cuts to offset the spending in a second GOP-only package Republicans are looking to assemble, which could include funds for parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the military operation in Iran and other policy initiatives.

Lawmakers are still discussing the specifics of what should be in such a bill and haven’t settled on a final topline number. But it is expected to carry a hefty price tag. The Pentagon estimated that just the first six days of the Iran strikes cost more than $11 billion and that operation is stretching into its fifth week.

The Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of conservatives in the lower chamber, said last week that they want any final product to be “fully paid for with commonsense offsets that meet the President’s request.” 

But some House Republicans acknowledge that securing those offsets may prove difficult, particularly as competing factions within the GOP conference push to include their own priorities in the bill.

“Pre-conflict Iran, I would have told you I had kind of a rough concept of what we could do for further reductions of fraud and achieving some savings, and you know, some ideas on how to do that with some other defense priorities the president had already announced,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas),  a member of the House Budget Committee and policy chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said.

“I still think there’s some framework there that you could pursue, but I will say that, you know, the tenor of what I’m hearing in this town right now is not overly favorable towards something that would fully pay for itself,” Roy said.

He added, “We did this dance last year. We made a lot of compromises.”

Republicans are aiming to pass their latest partisan package through the same mechanism, called budget........

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