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This week the Journal’s Kim Strassel wrote that “Republicans finally must grapple with an ugly truth within the party of “limited government”: Most of them don’t want to cut spending on anything.” Yes, it can be rather shocking for idealistic new GOP congressional staff to get a peek backstage and learn how few elected Republicans actually want government to be smaller.

Now the whole country will see what happens as the time has arrived for GOP lawmakers to enact some modest budget restraint as part of their budget reconciliation bill that includes tax restraint. Ms. Strassel advised readers to “watch for weeks of headlines about internal fights over how to squeeze a dollar here and fiddle an account there.”

Friday’s release of a White House budget proposal is generating an
interesting response on Capitol Hill.

“Trump budget plan draws pushback from key Senate Republicans,” says a Washington Post headline. The Post reports:

At least three key Senate Republicans are criticizing President Donald
Trump’s budget proposal, arguing it does not do enough to support the
military. The White House proposal, which was released Friday, sets
aside $1 trillion for the Pentagon, a 13 percent increase. But it
assumes $119.3 billion of that will come from the “one big beautiful”
bill that Republican lawmakers are working on to deliver on Trump’s
legislative priorities, including defense. Those voicing concerns with
that approach included Sen. Roger Wicker (Mississippi), chairman of
the Armed Services Committee; Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), chairwoman
of the Appropriations Committee; and Sen. Mitch McConnell (Kentucky),
the former Republican leader.

But why are they voicing concerns? As White House budget director Russell Vought notes in a letter to Sen. Collins, adding defense funding via the reconciliation bill, which can be passed with only Republican votes, means Republicans don’t also have to increase social spending to assuage Democrats:

Providing these resources through reconciliation ensures that the money
is available when needed, and not held hostage by Democrats to force
wasteful non-defense discretionary spending increases as was the case
in the President’s first term.

Seems eminently sensible—unless some GOP senators actually want to hike spending on Democrat priorities, too.

“Collins has ‘serious objections’ to parts of Trump 2026 budget,” notes a headline in The Hill. Aris Folley reports that the Republican lawmaker also objects to cutting spending on the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and Department of Education student outreach programs.

Hmm.

Writing at the New York Times about the objections from Sens. Collins, McConnell and Wicker, Catie Edmondson reports:

Their collective pushback amounted to a rare moment of defiance at a
time when Republicans on Capitol Hill have done little to fend off the
White House’s efforts to slash federal programs.

Mr. Wicker said the administration’s proposed military spending levels
would “shred to the bone our military capabilities and our support to
service members.”

The office of Sen. McConnell quotes him in a press release:

“It is peculiar how much time the President’s advisors spend talking
about restoring peace through strength, given how apparently unwilling
they’ve been to invest accordingly in the national defense or in other
critical instruments of national power… America cannot expect our allies
to heed calls for greater annual defense spending if we are unwilling
to lead by example…”

A 13% increase that pushes defense spending over the trillion-dollar mark is shredding our capabilities to the bone? There seems to be little danger that
we will not lead our allies in military funding.

Sadly, both parties are still recklessly agreeing not to make significant reforms to the mandatory entitlement programs that consume most of the
federal budget. But at least Republicans ought to be open-minded about ways
to save a taxpayer nickel. Mr. Vought’s letter describes the White House plan for cutting spending on non-defense discretionary items:

The recommended funding levels result from a rigorous, line-by-line
review of FY 2025 spending, which was found to be laden with spending
contrary to the needs of ordinary working Americans and tilted toward
funding niche non-governmental organizations and institutions of higher
education committed to radical gender and climate ideologies
antithetical to the American way of life.

We also considered, for each program, whether the governmental service
provided could be provided better by State or local governments (if
provided at all). Just as the Federal Government has intruded on matters
best left to American families, it has intruded on matters best left to
the levels of government closest to the people, who understand and
respect the needs and desires of their communities far better than the
Federal Government ever could.

Cutting such spending from the discretionary budget leads to significant
savings: the President is proposing base non-defense discretionary
budget authority $163 billion—22.6 percent—below current-year spending,
while still protecting funding for homeland security, veterans, seniors,
law enforcement, and infrastructure.

At least it’s a start.

Meanwhile over on the House side of Capitol Hill, Jennifer Scholtes of
Politico reports on an effort to cut a modest $9.3 billion via rescissions.
She quotes House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole (R., Okla.) saying that Republican lawmakers are not in any “big hurry” to enact the cuts.

They rarely are.

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