Congress’ Next Steps After Reconciliation

The Situation Report | July 21, 2025

Over the past two weeks, the US House of Representatives and US Senate passed the Rescissions Act of 2025. The bill, H.R. 4, passed the House on June 12, 2025 and the Senate passed it on July 17. It has been delivered for, and awaits, the President’s signature. The bill rescinds $9 billion in previously allocated federal funds.

With Congress passing the President's signature piece of legislation, they will focus their attention on the annual appropriations process for the next week and when they return from a monthlong recess in August. While several of the 13 separate appropriations bills will pass either the House or Senate, it is expected that an omnibus appropriations bill will need to be passed by October 1 to keep the government operating. If agreement cannot be reached on an omnibus bill, thre is the possibility of another another continuing resolution, either short term, or possibly long-term.

The President is also expected to send several recission bills beyond the recently passed legislation, which cut funds to the State Department, NPR and PBS. Domestic spending will be a focus of further recission bills, although it is not clear what specific domestic programs will be targeted. It is also possible that another reconciliation bill will be introduced in September. The focus of that bill is again, unclear, but discussions have focused recently on Medicare.

Reauthorization of the Older Americans Act could be on the docket as no agreement was reached last Congress on updating the Act. HCANYS and our DC team at Envision Strategy will continue to report on possible legislative action.