WASHINGTON — The House adopted a GOP-backed budget resolution along party lines Wednesday, taking a critical first step toward passing a $95 billion reconciliation package focused mostly on the Iran war.

The vote on the fiscal 2027 budget blueprint was 216-214, with only two Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio — joining all Democrats in opposition. Independent Kevin Kiley of California, a former Republican, also voted against it.

The budget resolution would lay out instructions for four House committees — Armed Services, Agriculture, Administration and Intelligence — to draft detailed legislation that House GOP leaders hope to approve when they return in September from a prolonged summer recess.

The instructions would allow for Republicans to provide up to $73 billion in defense and intelligence funding amid the ongoing war in Iran, $12 billion in farm aid and $10 billion geared toward advancing the party’s voting ID crackdown.

Adoption of the measure, whose fate was in considerable doubt, marks another modest victory for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has struggled throughout this Congress to keep his fractious GOP conference united on major policy items.

Johnson, in a statement hailing the vote, said the budget resolution “puts Congressional Republicans on a path to enacting two fundamentally simple and crucial goals: securing American elections and strengthening our homeland by providing supplemental funding requested by the Administration to support our national defense and protect our nation’s food supply.”

But it remains unclear when — or if —the Senate plans to take up the resolution.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., a longtime skeptic of a third reconciliation package, already threatened to hold the budget resolution hostage as he seeks a bipartisan funding deal to stave off a partial government shutdown this fall.

“It’s a possibility that, if necessary, we could pull that budget resolution passed by the House and use it to fund government,” Thune said, suggesting the Senate could use the filibuster-proof reconciliation process to fund the government if ongoing spending talks fall apart.

When both chambers return in September, they’ll have little more than 10 days of shared legislative time to pass legislation to keep the lights on when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

House Republicans have already passed a bare-bones stopgap bill this week to keep the government funded into early December. But Senate Republicans say they plan to roll out their own plan before leaving for their August recess in two weeks.

Iran war backlash

Democrats united against the partisan reconciliation plan, saying it would mostly help finance a war in Iran that the American public opposes.

“Today, House Republicans passed yet another budget that puts the American people last,” said Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan F. Boyle, D-Pa., the House Budget Committee’s top Democrat. “Instead of lowering the cost of groceries, gas, housing, or health care, this budget adds almost $100 billion to the national debt to bankroll the most unpopular war in American history.”

And some GOP conservative critics bristled at a plan that would allow for up to $95 billion in new spending without requiring any offsetting cuts to other programs.

In a post on X, Massie, a GOP dissenter, accused his party of abusing the reconciliation process to create “a slush fund for the Iran War, and in the process add $130 billion to our debt. We’ll see who’s conservative by the roll call vote.”

Kiley, who broke with his former party to become an independent, said the plan to boost defense spending amounted to a missed opportunity for Congress to “assert its authority to create a better strategy and a more stable strategy” on the Iran war.

But Johnson was able to win over some skeptics partly by pointing to the reconciliation package as the best opportunity Republicans have for passing a top priority of President Donald Trump: the so-called SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID at the polls.

The budget would give the Administration Committee authority to spend up to $10 billion, which Johnson has said could be used as grants to states that comply with stricter voter ID measures.

Some Republicans have expressed concerns that whatever is allowed in the reconciliation process would fall short of the tough voting restrictions they seek to put in place. But Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., said Wednesday he was won over after being allowed to read text of what he said was the election plan that would eventually become part of the final package.

“And so I read the language last night and and feel confident,” Burlison said.

Conservatives have acknowledged the strategy could run afoul of the Senate’s strict reconciliation rules. But House GOP leaders say inserting major elements of the voter ID bill into the reconciliation package would put the onus on Senate Republicans to get the measure enacted, even if it means overruling the Senate parliamentarian — a step Senate leaders have so far been unwilling to take.

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(Aidan Quigley and Jacob Fulton contributed to this report.)

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