DORAL, Florida — “Fraud prevention” in federal and state safety-net programs should be the main target of a new Republican reconciliation bill, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington said in an interview Tuesday where he also called for reviving Medicaid spending cuts provisions that fell out of last year’s GOP megabill.
“The whole kit and caboodle of welfare is $1.6 trillion in our budget,” Arrington said on the sidelines of the House Republican policy retreat. “But it’s also not just welfare — it’s programs across the federal government that states need to be responsible [for].”
Arrington said Republicans needed to act after federal officials identified potentially billions of dollars of potential benefits fraud in Minnesota. But the suggestion of additional cuts to safety-net programs comes as House Republicans vulnerable in the upcoming midterms deal with the political fallout of the Medicaid and food-aid cuts enacted last year.
“I’m going to listen to everything,” said Rep. Rob Wittman, a Virginia Republican battling to keep a district that could be redrawn in Democrats’ favor. “I think we need to be very thoughtful about what we do and how we go about doing that.”
Arrington said he wanted to revisit several proposals to reduce Medicaid spending that did not end up complying with strict Senate rules for a filibuster-skirting budget package. He suggested Senate Republicans didn’t spend “a lot of time” last year reworking them to pass muster.
Arrington also said he wants to identify Pentagon spending cuts that would offset new investments President Donald Trump wants for the military — something that will likely trigger pushback from GOP defense hawks.
“I think there’s certainly waste at the Pentagon,” he said. “I think the president and his team want to retool it, modernize it, but there’s also going to be a capital investment associated with it. I just want to make sure that whatever we’re spending, we’re offsetting.”
While Speaker Mike Johnson has repeatedly promised GOP hard-liners he will push for a new reconciliation bill, he continues to face serious internal doubts — especially after Trump failed to mention it once in a nearly hourlong address to Republican lawmakers Monday.
A senior House Republican, granted anonymity to candidly discuss internal conversations, said lawmakers shouldn’t “kill themselves” to do one given Trump’s lack of interest. And a key committee chair remains publicly skeptical of the push, noting Tuesday the House GOP majority is even thinner than it was in July, when the megabill passed.
“I’d love to do a second reconciliation bill, but I’d also love to be Brad Pitt,” Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said. “It’s never going to happen.”
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