As of November 19, 2025, Congress is indeed racing the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act to President Trump’s desk while far more consequential legislation—directly affecting national security, the economy, and millions of Americans—remains stalled in a post-shutdown logjam. The first and most urgent is the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the massive annual bill that sets Pentagon policy and authorizes $895 billion in defense spending. The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced its version in July, but the full Senate has yet to vote, and the House has not even taken up a companion bill. Without an enacted NDAA by January, the military will be forced to operate under outdated 2025 authorities, delaying new shipbuilding, troop pay raises, and critical munitions procurement at a time when the Trump administration is escalating operations against Iranian proxies and Chinese influence in the Pacific.

Second is the Defense Appropriations Act, one of the nine unfinished full-year spending bills needed to actually fund the military increases authorized in the NDAA. This bill is especially critical because the short-term continuing resolution signed on November 12 only funds the Pentagon at last year’s levels through late January 2026—meaning no money flows for new F-35s for Saudi Arabia, hypersonic weapons programs, or the border-wall construction Trump has ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to resume. House Republicans passed their version in September, but Senate Democrats are demanding higher non-defense spending levels, leaving the bill frozen. If no deal is reached by the January deadline, the Pentagon faces the real prospect of furloughs, halted training, and delayed weapons deliveries to allies.

Third is the stalled reconciliation package informally dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act – Phase Two”, a sweeping House-passed measure that would make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent, raise the SALT deduction cap to $40,000 for five years, impose work requirements on Medicaid and SNAP, and repeal most Inflation Reduction Act green-energy subsidies. Because it uses budget reconciliation, it can pass the Senate with only 51 votes, yet GOP senators from high-tax states and moderates worried about Medicaid cuts have so far prevented Majority Leader John Thune from bringing it to the floor. This single bill would affect federal revenue by an estimated $4.7 trillion over ten years and reshape domestic policy far more dramatically than any transparency measure—yet it sits untouched while lawmakers from both parties rush to vote on Epstein flight logs for the cameras.