Senate Republicans aren’t planning to be a rubber stamp for President Trump’s sweeping operation to shrink the federal government as lawmakers look to fiscal 2026 funding.
Conservatives in both chambers have been ramping up calls for Congress to codify cuts pursued by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), particularly as the administration’s efforts encounter roadblocks in court.
But Senate Republicans aren’t pushing for a blanket adoption of the administration’s measures in the chamber’s government funding bills for fiscal 2026.
When asked about the idea last week, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) told The Hill at the time that “it could be possible that, after careful consideration, we would decide to codify some of them.”
However, she added that the efforts shouldn’t be applied “across the board.”
With passage of government funding legislation for fiscal 2025 behind them, lawmakers are beginning to set their sights on the Sept. 30 deadline to prevent a shutdown and fund the government for fiscal 2026.
Funding negotiators are expecting the annual appropriations process to pick up after Trump releases his highly anticipated budget blueprint for fiscal 2026 in the weeks ahead. Presidential budget requests aren’t signed into law, but Trump’s could serve as a guide for the Republican-led Congress when crafting annual funding legislation.
Speaking to reporters earlier this month, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said DOGE’s efforts will help “prepare recommendations” for fiscal 2026, adding that “the big savings” found by DOGE “will be a part of [fiscal] ’26.”
“We’ll get a budget from the White House that reflects all of those savings, because there’ll be time to calculate it and do that, and then we will begin the appropriations process for [fiscal] ‘26,” Johnson said at a press conference. “I think it’s going to be a very exciting development, because we’re going to do it differently than it’s been done in years.”
Thousands of federal employees have been axed in recent months, and the Trump administration has signaled more firings are on the way, even after a recent court order finding some of the terminations unlawful prompted officials to move to reinstate upward of 20,000 workers.
Among the list of agencies where employees have been targeted are the Internal Revenue Service and departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Interior and Education.
Many Republicans have welcomed the recent moves as necessary measures by the Trump administration to shrink the federal government and curb federal spending, often citing the nation’s $36 trillion-plus debt as need for more aggressive action.
But others have also raised alarm over the pace and scale of the cost-cutting operation, particularly as some Republicans have faced questions from voters back home.
“It’s moving a lot faster than most of us thought that it would. We want to make sure that we have an input into it,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told Dakota News Now in an interview released on Tuesday. “We want to make sure that as members of the Senate, when we find something that’s not right, we can get it fixed as soon as possible.”
“The American people have said, one way or another, we’ve got to get this spending under control,” he said. “So we’re going to try to help the president wherever we can to get it under control, but we’re also going to be a double check where there is damage being done that should not be done.”
However, Republicans also acknowledge that the Senate faces different voting math than the House. Funding bills crafted in the upper chamber have to be more bipartisan in nature to make it across the floor due to a 60-vote threshold required to pass most legislation.
“We have to pass bipartisan bills. You can’t pass an appropriation bill without 60 votes,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), a spending cardinal, said last week, adding that both sides “always have tried to pass bipartisan bills.”
At the same time, appetite is growing among Republicans for the White House to send Congress a rescissions package that members say would allow Congress to approve DOGE cuts in both chambers — an idea that also came up during a huddle between House Republicans and Vice President Vance earlier this month.
Some Republicans see that option as an easier lift than pursuing DOGE measures in appropriations bills, given staunch Democratic opposition.
“That may be where we actually address some of the DOGE reductions,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), a senior appropriator, told The Hill last week. “To move those [appropriations] bills, both in committee and but particularly on the floor, we’re going to need Democrats.”
“And so it may be harder to do there, because to just bring [an appropriations] bill out of committee, party-line,” he said, “when we get to the floor, we’re not going to get passed. So, that’s why we may do that through some of the rescission bills on the discretionary side.”
But not all Republicans have been on board with DOGE’s complete operation.
While Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), another spending cardinal, said she supports measures to find inefficiencies in government, she has also been critical of efforts by the administration to gut the U.S. Agency for International Development — one of the earliest targets of Trump’s government reshaping efforts.
She also told reporters this week that other Republicans have kept mum about some of the administration’s recent actions and tech billionaire Elon Musk, whom Trump tapped to head up DOGE, out of fear.
“That’s why you’ve got everybody just zip-lipped, not saying a word because they’re afraid they’re going to be taken down — they’re going to be primaried, they’re going to be given names in the media,” she said. “We cannot be cowed into not speaking up.”
Murkowski was one of about two dozen Republicans who voted against an amendment to government funding legislation offered by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) last week to prevent a shutdown. The proposal was aimed at codifying DOGE’s cuts to foreign aid.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who voted for the amendment, told The Hill she thinks more members of her conference would have supported the measure had it not been for the shutdown threat.
“I definitely don’t want to shut down the government, and if there had been a majority, it would have shut down the government,” Lummis said. “So, had that first vote resulted in the Paul amendment passing, you would have seen people switch.”
“That said, we also want to, at the earliest opportunity we have, engage in some of the DOGE recommendations for cuts,” Lummis said. “And so, I think that, if there are rescission bills that find their way to the Senate floor, I think you’ll see some support for that.”
Lummis added that she also wants to see DOGE’s cuts incorporated into the annual funding bills, but she noted that she isn’t sure whether that’s the consensus of the party.
“I’m a devout reformer. I’m willing to accept cuts in almost any form at almost any time, but I don’t know how many people there are like me,” she said. “I don’t even know if it’s a majority of the majority party, but I think we’re going to get a chance to find out.”
