The Senate kicked off its amendment “vote-a-rama” Friday night on a revised budget blueprint that was expected to win adoption by early Saturday morning.
Democrats have filed more than 800 messaging amendments designed to attack the GOP’s budget resolution, which could pave the way for a sweeping reconciliation package containing much of President Donald Trump’s legislative wish list. While most of the amendments are not expected to be offered on the floor, senators were bracing for a long night of votes that ensures adoption of the resolution would be a tough slog.
The first step came shortly after 8 p.m., when the Senate voted on an amendment sponsored by Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, designed to express support for “strengthening and improving Medicaid for the most vulnerable populations.” Senate Finance ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., protested that the amendment was designed to cull the Medicaid rolls.
The largely party-line 51-48 vote to adopt Sullivan’s amendment reflected what is likely to be the final outcome of the resolution in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
But some Republicans were still wavering over how they would vote on final adoption. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has not disclosed her intentions, has expressed concerns about potential cuts to Medicaid.
But another key GOP holdout, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, said Friday night he was prepared to vote for the budget blueprint.
Cassidy earlier had told leadership of his concerns about using a “current policy” baseline, which allows Republicans to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent without offsets. But he said Friday that especially now given the tariff-driven economic uncertainty and stock market bloodbath this week it was important to unlock the reconciliation process to get the expiring tax cuts extended.
“I have been assured that there is a commitment in other ways to pay for an eventual reconciliation bill,” Cassidy said.
Given zero Democratic backers, Senate GOP leaders can afford to lose a maximum of three votes on their side and still adopt the budget on a simple majority as is allowed, if Vice President JD Vance is on hand to break a tie.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is the only Republican who has pledged to oppose the resolution, to protest a $5 trillion increase in the nation’s borrowing limit. He filed an amendment to downsize that figure to just $500 billion.
The biggest threat to GOP unity could come from a bipartisan amendment filed by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., that would eliminate an instruction for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to find $880 billion in savings over 10 years. Cuts of that magnitude from that committee is likely to require significant reductions in the Medicaid program, which provides health insurance to low-income families.
Democrats have attacked the GOP budget plan by saying it would trigger large cuts to Medicaid and other critical safety-net programs while extending tax breaks to upper-income households. And several Republicans, including Hawley and Collins, have expressed concern about potential Medicaid cuts. Trump has said he would not cut Medicaid benefits, but would target fraud and waste in the program.
Still, Republicans were generally upbeat about their prospects on Friday, despite many hours of “gotcha” amendments headed their way.
“We all know where this is all going. It’s just a matter of how much pain each party can inflict on the other party,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said.
‘Fight every which way’
But Democrats sought to make the task as difficult as possible by consuming hours of floor time to criticize the budget resolution and by filing hundreds of messaging amendments designed to score political points against the Trump administration.
“Democrats will fight every which way against these vicious attacks on American families, where billionaires win and families lose,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the floor Friday morning. “We will fight this awful bill and shine a light on these terrible cuts for all the American people to see.”
The revised budget resolution could pave the way for Republicans to make permanent the expiring 2017 tax cuts, enact new tax breaks, beef up border security, funnel more money to the military, raise the nation’s borrowing limit by as much as $5 trillion, and cut federal spending by as much as $2 trillion over 10 years, among other things.
Republicans say the filibuster-proof package is needed mostly to avoid saddling Americans with a major tax increase when many of the 2017 tax cuts expire after this year. They also say it would provide critical resources at the southern border and for the military at a time of rising threats.
But Democrats, in addition to their criticism of the GOP budget plan over potential Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy, also lobbed attacks on Trump’s new tariff barrage, which has wiped out trillions of dollars in stock market wealth over the last two days.
“The reality is, unless you’re way out at the upper end of the income scale, any benefit you get from this Republican bill is going to get blown out of the water as Trump’s tariffs continue to hike inflation,” Wyden said on the floor.
But the National Retail Federation, whose members are some of the hardest hit by Trump’s tariffs, threw its full weight behind the budget resolution. The group told Senate leadership it would be considering the vote as part of its voting scorecard based on the importance of extending the 2017 tax cuts.
The sector, which accounts directly or indirectly for about 1 in 4 U.S. jobs, needs the certainty that will come from making the 2017 provisions permanent, the NRF letter says. The group’s board and executive committee includes executives from industry giants like Walmart, Target Corp., BJ’s Wholesale Club and Macy’s.
“We need to stop Democrats’ goal of raising taxes by $4 trillion,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said on the floor. “Ninety percent of Americans got a tax cut from the Trump tax cuts in 2017. Our budget puts Congress on a path to make the tax cuts permanent. Permanency means certainty and stability for families and workers and those that create jobs.”
Tariffs, DOGE, Medicaid in focus
Most of the amendments are symbolic measures that call for creating a “deficit-neutral reserve fund” that wouldn’t change any budget numbers but allows for an expression of support or disapproval for various policies.
Other than Paul’s debt limit amendment, most were from Democrats — though Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., filed several of her own designed to show support for Trump policies.
One Blackburn amendment would create such a fund to help establish a “Campaign to Cut Waste,” mirroring the work of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE. Another would create a reserve fund to help deport all undocumented immigrants.
Democrats filed messaging amendments attacking the budget plan on Medicaid cuts and tax policy, among other things. But they also filed amendments to attack Trump policies on tariffs, DOGE cuts, and the administration’s use of the Signal messaging app to discuss military attack plans.
An amendment by Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., would create a point of order against legislation that reduces Medicare or Medicaid benefits.
Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., one of the most vulnerable Democrats facing reelection next year, filed an amendment that would create a reserve fund to reverse any cuts made to the Social Security Administration, which DOGE has targeted.
Retiring Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., filed an amendment that would create a reserve fund to ensure “tariffs do not increase prices for American consumers.” A proposal from Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, would create a reserve fund to limit tariffs “against allied countries that pose no national security or economic threat” to the U.S.
An amendment by Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who caucuses with Democrats, would create a reserve fund to prohibit the Food and Drug Administration from firing staff without cause. And Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., would create a reserve fund to make corporations “pay their fair share,” including by rolling back tax breaks “for giant corporations that have merged.”
And Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., would create a reserve fund to prohibit the use of commercial messaging apps such as Signal for discussion of military attack plans, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had done while planning for attacks against the Houthis in Yemen.
Paul M. Krawzak contributed to this report.
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