Cost-cutting is the order of the day in the halls of Congress, and lawmakers are coming up with new and inventive ways to find money for hurricane relief efforts. One of the ideas was the Republican Study Committees’ proposed closing schools located on stateside bases and transferring the children to nearby school districts. The plan, according to the committee, would save an estimated $788 million over 10 years. The trouble is, many dependent schools—of which there are 64 in seven states and Puerto Rico—are in rural areas with limited tax bases and scarce resources.
House lawmakers unveiled a new reconciliation package July 15 with $60 billion for defense, $290 billion less than the Pentagon has been seeking, a day after a Senate vote to advance the annual defense policy bill failed—developments that show the perilous state of the Pentagon’s ambitious plans for fiscal 2027.