Congressman Bill Huizenga is expecting the U.S. House to get to work on Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations bills when it returns to Washington next week.

While there’s been much talk about spending cuts included in the Big, Beautiful Bill, Huizenga says there are more coming. He tells us spending has been out of control on multiple fronts since COVID.

“Because we had seen such a massive expansion in spending, for that money getting sent to states and locals and all those things, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which really did not do anything other than pick inflation up, we’ve got to reverse that, and a significant part of that is going to be our spending choices,” Huizenga said.

Benton Harbor Mayor Marcus Muhammad has warned that Congress is looking to cut Community Development Block Grant funding through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in CDBG funds come to Benton Harbor each year to help with home improvement projects, among other things, but Huizenga says Congress will be looking at tightening that program.

“In this particular case, as I’ve said to Mayor Muhammad, we’ve got to make sure that Benton Harbor or any other city or county around the state of Michigan can make the case as to, one, the effective use of it, two, how it is changing the community, and three, is it really truly needed as we are going about this?”

Huizenga says there is a movement in the House to look at exactly what CDBG is funding and “trimming that back” because many communities have gotten too dependent on the federal government.

With the next spending bills, Huizenga says the goal will be all about promoting economic growth.