It’s still doable but the House Speaker foolishly ties in the SAVE Act. 
A Narrow Path to a Slim Bill
Please consider Mike Johnson Is Plotting a Narrow, Fast Reconciliation Bill
House Speaker Mike Johnson and the White House are hoping to push a narrow reconciliation bill through the House by the end of next week that would include very few Republican priorities and focus mostly on defense and farm aid, multiple sources told NOTUS.
The working plan is for the bill to have sections from four committees: the House Administration Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Agriculture Committee.
The bill will include $70 billion for the war in Iran and defense, $20 billion for agriculture, mostly relief funds, and the SAVE America Act.
While leadership knows that the SAVE America Act, President Donald Trump’s priority voting bill, is likely to be stripped out in the Senate, including it in this package would help secure support from conservatives to pass it out of the House. That’s especially true because the White House is not pushing for any cuts to avoid a fight with House moderates and pass it quickly. The White House wants Johnson to vote on the measure by the end of next week, a lofty goal in a chamber with such a razor-thin majority.
Another complication for the speaker is that he pledged to some members that reconciliation 3.0 would be a huge package with several Republican priorities that couldn’t pass on their own.
SAVE Act Is Dead
I have accurately made that proclamation since March.
Mathematically illiterate Republicans loaded it up with so much garbage there are not even 50 Republican votes.
Furthermore, it’s not just a matter of the 50th vote. Republicans would have to be willing to nuke the filibuster.
Johnson Beats a Dead Mule
There is no point in attaching provisions that have zero chance in the Senate. But over and over this has been Johnson’s tactic.
The stalemate is partly his own doing. Johnson keeps promising other items that the Senate won’t approve, not just the SAVE Act.
Finally, there is more than a handful of House Republicans who have stated they will not pass anything without the SAVE Act.
Even the WSJ Editorial Board Understand SAVE Act Lies
Let the Dead Mule Beating Continue
I am repeatedly on record in support of dead mule beating. The mule doesn’t mind, and I endorse dead mule beating.
Q: Why
A: I am in favor of no more bills of any kind. I don’t want to waste money on war efforts, give handouts to farmers, or spend money on anything else.
A few of us, very few, are anti-war, fiscal conservatives. Curiously, Trump ran on that platform.
If you voted for Trump’s promises, you should be against handouts, against more military spending, and against more killing.
Would You Believe?
Amusing Infighting
No More Wars
Irony of the Stupidity
So dear MAGA Republicans, please keep beating dead mules. And I will keep praising your stupidity.
I hope no key bills pass for the remainder of the session.
Alas, I predict all the liars who said nothing passes unless the SAVE Act passes will instead vote for more spending.
Time Has Run Out
Fortunately, time has run out on Trump’s proposed unconstitutional madness. Thank you Senators Mitch McConnel and Thom Tillis.
Thank them and another handful for the filibuster as well.
Note that 50 votes would not guarantee passage even with Vice President Vance’s tie-breaking vote because this is not a budget reconciliation item.
So it’s not just a matter of finding 50 votes. It’s a matter of finding 50 votes willing to kill the filibuster.
Ultimately, there are not 50 votes to kill the filibuster which is the final hurdle. There are at least 7 Republican Senators against killing the filibuster.
Thus, even if Murkowski switched her vote, the SAVE Act would still be shot down by the Senate rules.
The bill was doomed from the start as written.
Yet, the longer this charade lasts, the fewer bill that will get passed. And that’s a good thing.
Senator Lisa Murkowski’s Vote Against the SAVE Act
On July 19, 2026, I commented Senator Lisa Murkowski’s Rock Solid Reason to Vote Against the SAVE Act
You have to be purposefully ignorant or wish to steal the election to disagree with Murkowski.
Earlier today I commented In Praise of Senators McConnell and Tillis Last Brave Act for America
Very few are willing to buck their political party, stick to convictions, and do what’s right.
Addendum
This is interesting. I checked a few days ago at 52%. I failed to check today or this would have been my lead chart.
Not sure what happened, but my guess is Trump’s speech. Trump addressed the nation July 16.
I didn’t see where in the bill conservative Republicans were going to pay for these increases. Anyone? Any conservative MAGA folks going to point it out? No? Why not, you human pieces of weasel shite.
I think discussion about the save act is a distraction that Trump is goading people into. Iran and Canadian tariffs imply that Trump has a clear plan for the mid terms that does not rely on Congress.
To me it is legal tie ups after the election that are the big threat. This is either aggressive interpretation of the mini SAVE acts already implemented at state level…or existing congressional leadership refusing to certify results based on bogus legal uncertainty hyped up by Trump.
Possible Stephen Miller playbook…
Our proud soldiers died for Israel…
Anyone who joined the military after 2003 is guilty of at least poor judgment.
God I hope no more spending passes in Washington. Not holding my breath on it; but really hoping not ONE MORE CENT goes to ANY Defence.
Defence’s new $1 TRILLION record should have ALREADY been cut. LIVE WITH YOUR MEANS WARMONGERS!
If you examine the official 2007 budget, it says total military spending was ~2x the DoD budget and exceeded $1t. I dont know why we wouldn’t presume the same multiple now. IOW $2-3t.
I think the answer to this is “yes”, but I have to ask: If Reconciliation dies because doofus Johnson ties in the SAVE Act, does that mean section 219 of the NDAA (melding Israel and the US) dies, too? If so, thank God.
They will find a way to ram it through. As popular support for Israel dwindles, Israel knows its window of opportunity is closing fast.
Sadly, I assume you’re correct.
Trump’s 25% tariffs end on Friday. He isn’t even trying to get them extended by Congress.
I spoke too soon. The tariff meister says he’s putting on a 50% tariff on Canadian cars, booze, and dairy. We will have to see how things haggle out.
Mj may just be trying to please his master. Even though i think he is either a true believer/ grifter/
I think he’s just a fucking idiot. So he’s in good company with Trump.
And why do we need Farm Relief and you mean that there is not $70 B in waste at the Pentagon. Is anyone focused on the deficit? Forgot we will get it all from the waste and fraud in healthcare, SNAP, immigrants stealing and Social Security. If that was the case why haven’t we seen some results? Is there a Republican who cares about the deficit? If the House passes this bill the answer is NO.
Republicans not republican voters. Privatize profits make the debt public. Then when the system collapses the will have the wealth to scoop in and clean up further increasing their wealth
I love the smell of deadlock in the morning.
But Little Johnson will do his dance for Orange Daddy.
This: “including [SAVE Act] in this package would help secure support from conservatives ….” makes me wonder, how is disrupting our historically generally robustly decentralized, and successful voting system, straight in the teeth of the Constitution, “conservative”? It is MAGA, yes.
“Conservative” is a word, like “love,” so freighted with ambiguity that it now means, who knows what it means?
I’ve read a lot in the history of how the term “liberal” mutated from Adam Smith’s lauding of a person seeking that persons’ fulfillment, in that person’s way, with minimal but sound government, through FDR’s grafting on “freedom from want” through the agency of government, birthing a global entitlement, to its present tax-and spend connotation. Likewise the battered word “conservative” has followed a twisted path to being unrecognizable. Like, deficits don’t matter, Mar-a-Lago facelifts and cleavage for women is conservative, and so on.
Unfortunately, in such a philosophical muddle, sometimes, in the words of Travis Bickle, it might take “a real rain” to sort things. I’m hoping we don’t blunder into that.
All these worthless clowns are worried about and going back home so they can campaign locally to keep their jobs and unconsciousible taxpayer funded benefits and lifetime income.
Its funny they dont worry about their voters until oh about 6 months from the election.
Voters are stupid and easily manipulated.