Republicans’ solution to the fight over Department of Homeland Security funding risks carving a self-inflicted scar into Congress’ power.
The potential result: even more hyperpartisan spending decisions, fewer opportunities to adjust budgets for changing needs, and less scrutiny on billions of taxpayer dollars.
Yet the maneuver Republicans are now lining up to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol is becoming normalized by both parties, congressional analysts said. If that holds, the shift would diminish one of lawmakers’ most fundamental powers — their ability to direct spending — while leaving massive sums free from annual review.
“The cat is out of the bag and it’s going to be very difficult to kind of rein in this abuse,” said Dominik Lett, a budget and policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute. As more spending gets approved this way, he added, there’s a greater risk of waste.
The concern centers on growing use of the partisan budget reconciliation process to approve routine annual spending.
Taken to an extreme, Republicans could, for example, fund the entire Defense Department without worrying about Democratic votes or policy restrictions. Democrats, Lett said, could in turn increase Environmental Protection Agency funding 10-fold when they have power.
ICE Fight
As lawmakers return to Washington this week, Republicans plan to use the process to fund ICE and Border Patrol for this fiscal year—and possibly multiple years beyond—to end a stalemate over the agencies. If they succeed, they could set the agencies’ funding on cruise control for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term, at least, leaving it practically out of reach for lawmakers.
The move would significantly expand on similar steps Democrats used during the Biden administration.
At stake is the usual appropriations process that requires at least 60 senators to agree to spending bills, effectively forcing compromise and bipartisan buy-in.
The traditional process gives lawmakers a chance to review spending annually, and to increase funding for programs that need it, cut those that are no longer as urgent, or add new policy requirements. It encourages cabinet secretaries to respond to Congress’ demands, lest their money stall.
But as partisan fights have muddied the process, both parties have turned to reconciliation to fund areas the other side opposes. Such bills, which by rule must focus on fiscal issues, require a bare majority to pass the Senate, skirting its 60-vote rule and allowing one party to act alone when they control Congress and the White House.
“Unfortunately I see this development as part of a pretty long story of sort of the normal spending process getting squeezed and displaced,” said Philip Wallach, who studies Congress at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Republicans last year gave ICE an extra $75 billion as part of their tax-and-spending megabill — equal to more than seven years of annual funding. The Pentagon got $150 billion. Such moves put agencies, or parts of them, on a financial glide path with few ways to rein them in or change course, at least until political power flips.
“You’ve given big pots of money to the Pentagon in theory without any annual oversight,” said Sarah Binder, who studies Congress at George Washington University. “The world is changing over that long five-year period and you’ve really tied the hands of appropriators.”
After last year’s tax bill, the GOP chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services committees wrote the Pentagon asking for details about how the new $150 billion would be spent. It was a notable role reversal: usually lawmakers direct that spending, rather than pleading for information.
Amped Up
Democrats used reconciliation during President Joe Biden’s administration to bypass the appropriations process for some of their priorities, including IRS enforcement and green energy subsidies, analysts said.
Republicans, who were cut out of the process and never had buy-in to those programs, rescinded chunks of that funding last year, and then took the idea to new heights in their tax bill.
“Republicans definitely amped that up,” Wallach said, approving spending “they wouldn’t have even vaguely been able to get through the regular appropriations process with large bipartisan support.”
Trump has used the funding as he sees fit, shifting it to pay TSA salaries, for example, with little recourse for lawmakers.
Democrats’ demands for immigration enforcement changes have resulted in a prolonged stalemate over DHS funding. Unable to reach a deal, Republicans plan to use reconciliation to go around them.
What raises the stakes, analysts said, is that in the past, the parties have initiated reconciliation for bigger purposes — such as Biden’s economic stimulus or GOP tax cuts — and then tacked on other funding.
This time, Republicans are starting the reconciliation process explicitly for routine annual spending.
“That’s a distressing sign for where things are headed,” Wallach said.
Appropriators in both parties have warned about the precedent.
“This is undermining the regular annual appropriations process,” Senate Appropriations Committee member
The panel, whose staff has expertise on spending bills, is largely shut out of crafting reconciliation measures.
Republicans say they’ve been forced to turn to reconciliation because of Democratic intransigence, and that they warned Democrats about using this avenue under Biden.
“Democrats have done real damage to the appropriations process by repeatedly forcing government shutdowns and refusing to fund entire agencies,” Sen.
Limitations
Some in both parties argue the threat is overblown. Reconciliation is only available if one side controls both chambers of Congress and the White House, a relatively infrequent situation. They note that 11 of the 12 annual spending bills this year passed with bipartisan support.
They also say reconciliation is such an arduous process that it’s not viable for most routine spending. It follows an arcane set of rules, requires a grueling vote series, and can only succeed if a party stays largely unified.
If Democrats take control of one or both chambers of Congress next year, reconciliation will be sidelined, for now.
Analysts were more gloomy. Once a line is crossed, lawmakers rarely go back.
“Over the long run,” Lett said, “routine abuse of reconciliation erodes checks and balances.”
— With assistance from
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