US Treasury Secretary Bessent is set to unveil a plan to reduce the federal deficit in the coming days, but there is no sign that the Republican-controlled Congress is willing to cooperate on cutting net spending. According to Sina Finance, North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis said on Monday that, given political realities, he sees no action from Congress on the deficit and called deficit reduction "not a popular issue that helps win midterm elections, even though it is the right thing to do."

House and Senate Republicans dropped an earlier plan this summer to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in spending after lawmakers representing swing districts worried about voter backlash. Republican leaders instead said they would present a plan after the election.

Meanwhile, the House has advanced a budget resolution that would pave the way for as much as $95 billion in additional spending this year without offsetting cuts, with the money mainly going to the war in Iran. The Senate has not yet acted.

House Republican leaders said they will later propose legislation to save about $200 billion by targeting alleged fraud in Medicaid and other benefit programs, while also planning an additional $350 billion in defense spending.

The deficit has widened further since U.S. President Donald Trump's second term began, even as Congress has repeatedly discussed deficits and debt. Last year, Congress passed Trump's signature tax and spending bill; even with $1.1 trillion in net spending cuts, mainly to Medicaid and food aid for low-income Americans, it is still set to add $4.1 trillion to deficits over the next decade.

Bessent has so far revealed little about his fiscal overhaul. In an interview last week, he said a fraud-fighting task force could be created to save the government "hundreds of billions of dollars."