In the wake of the collapse of negotiations with Iran and the resumption of military strikes, the White House and congressional leaders have teed up what would be this Congress’ third reconciliation bill, this time to give extra cash to the Pentagon. Today, the House Budget Committee voted 20-14 to advance the bill to the House floor, where it could be taken up as soon as next week. Reconciliation is a budgetary tool Congress created to help reduce spending. Using it to increase spending, financed through more taxpayer debt, on unneeded and unpopular programs is a gross misuse. Congress should reject this fiscally reckless maneuver.

The House Budget Committee’s reconciliation framework instructs specific committees to submit changes in law that increase the deficit for the period of FY2027 through FY2036, in other words, it instructs them to spend money. Specifically, the framework instructs the Armed Services Committee to spend $60 billion, the Agriculture Committee to spend $12 billion, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to spend $13 billion, and the House Administration Committee to spend $10 billion, for a total of $95 billion.

Despite strongly worded demands late last month from the Freedom Caucus for offsets to pay for any new spending in a third reconciliation package, there are no corresponding instructions to reduce the deficit.

The reconciliation blueprint is roughly in line with the supplemental request that the White House formally submitted to Congress last month. In that request, the White House sought $67 billion for the Department of Defense, including $12.1 billion for classified programs, and $11.1 billion for agriculture subsidies, among other smaller requests.

While the reconciliation instructions appear to seek less for the Pentagon, that’s just a bit of budgetary sleight of hand. The $13 billion for the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is classified spending, the bulk of which will likely be used to pay for the Pentagon’s $12.1 billion classified spending request. In practical terms, these reconciliation instructions direct $73 billion to help cover the costs of the Iran War, $6 billion more than the earlier request for $67 billion.

This latest chicanery to fund the Iran War is a clear indication that leadership does not have the votes to pass a supplemental appropriations bill, which would require a 60-vote majority in the Senate. Reconciliation, however, only needs simple majorities in the House and Senate. Even so, reconciliation 3.0 is far from a slam dunk.

There is a long list of reasons to oppose this latest reconciliation package. Here are five of them.

First, budgeting for national security or agriculture programs through reconciliation undermines congressional oversight over how the money is spent, as we detailed in a critique of Reconciliation 1.0. The supplemental this package is based on was incredibly scant on details, requesting, for instance, “$21 billion for munitions” without elaborating. That suggests this package would turn into yet another slush fund, rather than a detailed spending plan.

Second, the package includes no offsets, meaning it would add $95 billion to the national debt. The national debt is fast approaching $40 trillion, and interest payments on the debt have surpassed $1 trillion annually. As Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) aptly put it, “bankrupt nations are difficult to defend.”

Third, contrary to misleading statements put out by the administration and parroted by major media outlets, the Pentagon is not, in fact, “running out of money.” In FY2026, the Pentagon got an 18 percent budget boost. As of July 2, it’s still sitting on roughly $89 billion in unobligated funds from Reconciliation 1.0, so it quite literally has the money to cover these expenses.

Fourth, the agricultural subsidies are unnecessary. As we pointed out in our statement responding to the supplemental request, this would mark “10 consecutive years in which ‘emergency’ unbudgeted farm subsidies have been shoveled from the Federal Treasury on top of already generous farm bill handouts.”

Finally, it would fund the continuation of a war that Congress has not only refused to authorize, but that Congress has in fact directed the president to end, albeit through non-binding legislation.

As the September 30 end of the fiscal year rapidly approaches, Congress should reject this wasteful, and partisan reconciliation package and focus instead on passing the dozen regular spending bills that fund the federal government before the end of the fiscal year. Looking at the scorecard, the House has approved two of these bills and the Senate hasn’t passed any. In fact, the Senate Appropriations Committee hasn’t even advanced any. There’s a lot of real work to be done without this costly distraction.