After six months of wheeling and dealing, Congress is finally ready to move on from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. So, what’s next for the nation’s lawmakers? There’s a lot on the docket, but – strange as it may seem – the next few big items are largely more of the same. From DOGE-inspired rescissions to not one but two more reconciliation bills and the annual spending vs government shutdown fiscal battle, the GOP’s legislative agenda is all about the Benjamins.
Congress Considers Cuts Between Big Budget Bills
Now that the big, beautiful bill is out of the way, congressional Republicans are engaged in their next big legislative fight: Clawing back $9.4 billion in funding already appropriated by Congress for foreign aid and public broadcasting. These cuts, proposed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), must be signed into law by July 18, or the money goes on to the recipients for whom it was initially slated.
The bill is scheduled to hit the Senate floor this week – again, Friday July 18, is the deadline – but there are serious concerns over its chances of success. The rescissions package cleared the House 214-212 in June – a narrow victory. But in the upper chamber, some Republicans – including Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins of Maine – are still struggling to keep a number of the target programs off the chopping block.
Donald Trump himself is leaning on his party’s lawmakers to make it happen. “Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement,” the president wrote on Truth Social, referring to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which he wants defunded. That’s a tough spot to be in for any legislator up for re-election in the midterms who might depend on MAGA votes but balk at additional spending cuts.
Conflicts aside, however, GOP leaders believe they will manage to deliver the cuts to the White House in time.
Get Ready for Reconciliation – Again
As if one major budget battle per year weren’t enough, congressional Republicans are gearing up to do it all over again in just a couple of months – and maybe even a third time in the spring. “We’re gong to do this again,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) told the press shortly after his chamber passed the revised One Big Beautiful Bill Act. “We’re gonna have a second reconciliation package in the fall and a third in the spring of next year,” he said on Fox’s The Ingraham Angle.
Rep. Ralph Norman, the Republican from South Carolina’s Fifth District, is on board as well, calling another reconciliation attempt “absolutely feasible.” But he notes that the clock is ticking: “[Trump will] have a better chance now, because you don’t have to deal with the filibuster, where you can get 50% plus one. If there’s ever a chance to do it, we need to do it now, because the midterms are coming up in the middle of next year. So really we need to push for the next eight months.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who initially balked at the big, beautiful bill, said he had been fairly well assured of a “second bite of the apple” by the White House and Senate GOP leaders. “I think I pretty well have a commitment,” Sen. Johnson explained. “They’re going to do that, and we’re going to set a process, line by line, program by program.”
“Another reason why I definitely had to vote ‘yes’ is I would have just dealt myself out of being involved in that process, and I want to be highly involved in that for the next process,” he elaborated.
2026 Budget or Bust?
Big, Beautiful Bill aside, the federal budget for fiscal year 2025 – passed by continuing resolution in March – expires on September 30. Each year, Congress gets together to argue about federal spending and whether to pass the increased budget inevitably requested by whichever party happens to be in the majority. Equally inevitable, it seems, is the minority party’s sudden dedication to fiscal responsibility. Note this isn’t a Republican or Democratic Party issue – it’s majority vs minority. Politicians may have famously short memories, but the people remember: Both groups want more money, a higher debt ceiling, and less accountability for their spending when they’re the ones in power.
This year doesn’t seem likely to be any different. Though there isn’t much talk of it yet – why resolve a major problem guaranteed to come back at the same time every year a few months early when you can wait until the last moment and the risk of partial government shutdown, after all? Still, it’s a process that will begin sooner rather than later, as there remains less than 90 days before the current budget expires.
So, while the BBB that ate up the first six months of the 119th Congress may have been a decisive victory for the president’s legislative agenda – fiscally and otherwise – neither it nor the DOGE rescissions establish the actual federal budget for next year. Perhaps that’s the intended purpose of one of the two reconciliation bills tentatively planned for this fall and next spring – but maybe not. More likely than not, expect yet another continuing resolution to kick the can further down the road.
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