House Republican leadership has floated to members a fourth — yes, fourth — reconciliation package they would aim to bring to the floor after the November midterms.
While the plans have no guaranteed path to success and may not become a formal proposal, House Republicans are discussing them internally, Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Alabama) and Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said Wednesday.
This Congress has leaned heavily on the party-line reconciliation process that allows legislation to clear the Senate with a simple majority, as Republicans have struggled to pass their legislative agenda. Typically, Congress would pass one or two of these types of budget packages through the reconciliation process — making this Congress an outlier.
The possibility of a fourth reconciliation bill could offer some hope to defense hawks who see the $95 billion package Republicans unveiled Wednesday as falling far short of the military buildup President Donald Trump requested in his $1.5 trillion 2026 budget request.
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Rogers said the unplanned cost of Iran and Venezuela operations had created a “big hole” in the Pentagon budget for 2026 that has to be filled immediately.
“This is money we’ve got to backfill — the hole that’s been created with our munitions stockpile problem, and then the operations in Venezuela and Iran,” Rogers said. “If we don’t get this money, there is going to be a very large hole … that has got to be filled. If we don’t get this done, there’s going to be training they just can’t do.”
Republican leaders intend to exclude from the bill announced Wednesday any cuts that would offset the new spending, arguing that the money for defense and agriculture is urgent and that such cuts could complicate or slow down the bill’s passage.
Instead, leaders are signaling to the conference that they could pair additional defense money with offsets in another reconciliation effort after the elections — effectively delaying the politically messy fight over how to pay for the third package’s spending.
Republicans’ more immediate reconciliation plan instructs the House Armed Services Committee to produce legislation that dedicates no more than $60 billion and the House Intelligence Committee to draft its bill at $13 billion or less to address much of Trump’s request to cover the costs of the Iran war. The committees have until Sept. 11 to introduce their legislation.
The combined $73 billion would not address the broader military buildup the Trump administration sought in its fiscal 2027 budget request.
The administration’s June supplemental spending request for the Pentagon included $67.1 billion to cover Operation Epic Fury in Iran and other national security needs, including military operations, readiness, munitions and classified programs.
But the administration separately requested $350 billion in mandatory funding in fiscal 2027. The administration’s $1.5 trillion defense budget proposal asked for the $350 billion to come through reconciliation and the rest in regular appropriations.
Trump, as recently as last month, exhorted lawmakers to make that a reality.
“I am hereby calling on Republicans in Congress to IMMEDIATELY advance and pass the forthcoming $350 Billion Reconciliation Bill (Recon 3.0) — which, at the request of our Great Department of War — will include THE SAVE AMERICA ACT as well. No games, no delays, and no weak compromises! Do this ASAP,” he wrote on Truth Social in June.
“This is a GENERATIONAL Investment in our Military, even bigger than President Reagan’s! Recon 3.0 is the ONLY path to the full $1.5 TRILLION DOLLAR Military Budget our Warriors need in order to build THE ARSENAL OF FREEDOM,” he continued.
Rogers said the Pentagon needs that money for an array of needs, and without a fourth reconciliation package, “it’s a problem.”
“Assuming we get this $60 billion, and we don’t get the balance of that $350 billion, that leaves about $190 billion of must-haves that I don’t know how I’m going to deal with,” Rogers said. “But as Peter King used to say, ‘I’ll jump off that bridge when I get to it.’”
Some defense hawks, including Rogers, see this week’s more modest bill as a reflection of what’s feasible in an election year. It addresses the Pentagon’s most immediate needs, House Armed Services Vice Chair Rob Wittman (R-Virginia) told NOTUS.
“What you’re looking at is what’s the art of the possible,” Wittman said. “Nobody denies what the need is. The key is: What can we do? How do you prioritize what you need? How do you get that done? At the very least, the $67 billion, in my mind, is that bogey that’s right in front of us that we have to be able to address.”
However, Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), another defense hawk and advocate for the $1.5 trillion request, panned the emerging House plan on the third reconciliation bill.
“I think it’s inadequate,” he said. Asked if a fourth package would be needed, he said. “We need to do a better one.”
House leaders, he said, kept him in the dark as they shifted toward the slimmer number.
“There was no extent to which I was read in,” he said.
Senior Senate Republicans, including Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), have cast doubt on reconciliation as being a viable way to fund the asks and advocated for funding in a normal way.
“I think it’s best that we proceed through the regular appropriations process and the supplemental,” Collins said Wednesday.
Democrats, meanwhile, say the Pentagon should use the billions in unspent funds from the reconciliation bill Republicans passed last year before seeking additional money to pay for the war.
“If these are urgent priorities, you’ve got $89 billion that you haven’t spent and that you haven’t even obligated to spend from last year,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia). “Why do you need to go through this complicated set of gymnastics to get $67 billion more dollars?
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