House Backs Trump Iran War Budget Despite Midterm Election Fears

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(Bloomberg) — House Republicans approved a $95 billion budget plan largely aimed at funding President Donald Trump’s Iran war despite rising fears the unpopular conflict and surging consumer energy prices will endanger GOP lawmakers’ prospects in the midterm election. 

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The budget plan is part of a two-step process that would allow Republicans to fast-track $73 billion for Iran war-related costs over the objections of minority Senate Democrats. The measure also would pave the way for billions of dollars in aid to farmers hit by foreign retaliation against Trump’s tariff increases and war-related increases in their fuel and supply costs.

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Speaker Mike Johnson united his fractious conference behind the plan, which was adopted on a 216 to 214 vote.  

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Conservatives voted for the plan, which would finance all of its new spending by increasing the federal budget deficit, after Johnson’s team pledged to seek spending cuts after the November election.

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No House Democrats voted for the budget resolution and party leaders said they plan to make the vote to green-light Iran war money a centerpiece of their campaign to take back control of the House in the November elections. 

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“Donald Trump’s reckless and costly war of choice has skyrocketed gas prices for ordinary Americans,” Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said on the House floor shortly before the vote. “What we should be doing is using taxpayer dollars to make life more affordable for the American people.”

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House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers portrayed the vote as a matter of supporting US troops engaged in combat abroad.

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“No matter how you feel about the current events, these funds are necessary to ensure our fighting forces remain ready, our troops are paid, and our nation is safe,” Rogers, an Alabama Republican, said on the House floor.

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The conflict showed signs of escalating after the US completed its 11th straight day of attacks on Iran and the remains of several US service members killed in recent days arrived in Dover, Delaware. Trump vowed to bomb bridges and power plants in Iran if Tehran continues to attack cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz while Iranian leaders threatened to retaliate in kind against US allies in the region.

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Vulnerable Republican lawmakers running in competitive districts confront broad public opposition to the war. Some 60% of Americans say the war against Iran has not been worth it while only 34% say the military action has been worth it, according to a Quinnipiac Poll last month.

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Republican senators are also in no rush to vote on war funding, even after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday urged the Senate to cover the $37.5 billion he said his department has already spent on the Iran conflict.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said it would be “no easy task” to adopt the House budget. Senators could delay funding for the Iran war until after the election.  

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Senate Republicans are deeply divided between defense hawks who are holding out billions more in Pentagon funding and deficit hawks who want spending cuts that are unpopular with swing-state moderates. 

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