The Senate took its first procedural step Tuesday on a budget blueprint that would pave the way for a filibuster-proof border security, defense and energy package, a key part of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.
Once GOP leaders were certain of a critical mass of senators returning to Washington in time, they teed up a vote on the motion to proceed to the fiscal 2025 budget resolution, which was agreed to on a mostly party-line, 50-47 vote. Only a simple majority is needed to proceed and to eventually adopt the framework on a final vote, but Republicans don’t expect any Democrats to help them advance it, making every GOP vote count.
Once a budget resolution is adopted in both chambers, key congressional committees can get to work on writing the actual reconciliation bill — which is immune to a filibuster, like the budget resolution — to implement their fiscal priorities.
The initial Senate plan laid out in the fiscal 2025 resolution envisions spending boosts for defense and border security, domestic energy incentives and offsets to pay for the package. It doesn’t address the 2017 tax cuts expiring at the end of the year, instead promising to come back with a second budget reconciliation process later this year to deal with the tax pieces of the GOP agenda.
“It’s time to act on the decisive mandate the American people gave to President Trump in November,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in announcing his decision to take up the budget resolution this week. “Securing the border, rebuilding our defense, and unleashing American energy.” Added Thune: “Let’s get it done.”
The Senate Budget Committee approved the resolution last week on a party-line vote. On the floor, debate is limited to 50 hours followed by a “vote-a-rama” on amendments that keeps going until senators get tired of offering them. In the past, they’ve typically gone into the wee hours of the morning the following day before a final vote on adopting the resolution.
Aides said the vote-a-rama would likely begin sometime on Thursday, depending on how much debate time is yielded back.
‘Time is of the essence’
The Senate budget resolution would allow for as much as $345 billion in new spending for border security, the Pentagon, the Coast Guard and possibly other agencies over the next four years. Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the spending would be offset by cuts to other programs that have yet to be identified. Authorizing committees would have until March 7 to recommend cuts to the Budget Committee.
“We’ve got to keep our foot on the gas,” Graham said in a statement Tuesday, pointing to comments from top administration officials that they are running out of money for immigration enforcement. “Taking up the budget resolution this week now puts us one step closer to the most transformational border security bill in history. Time is of the essence.”
The reconciliation instructions in the budget resolution would only require those committees to come up with a minimum of $4 billion in deficit reduction, but the expectation is they will come up with offsetting cuts to keep GOP deficit hawks on board. Already one Republican senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky — the only one to vote against the motion to proceed on Tuesday — has expressed concerns about the resolution for not proposing deeper spending cuts.
While powerless to block the resolution on their own, Senate Democrats held a conference call over the weekend to plot strategy. They have been hoping to build public opposition to the measure by stressing the deep cuts that could be made to critical safety-net programs like Medicaid and food stamps. The budget resolution assumes nearly $9 trillion in cuts through unspecified “allowances” over a decade, including $1 trillion this fiscal year.
Democrats are likely to offer numerous amendments seeking to put Republicans on the record supporting deep cuts affecting the most vulnerable in order to pay for tax cuts for the most fortunate.
“This is going to be a long, drawn out fight,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said on the floor Tuesday. “We will show the hollowness of Republicans’ arguments on cutting waste. We will expose Republican attempts to cut health care, to cut Medicaid, to cut housing, to cut [National Institutes of Health], to empower DOGE so it incinerates basic services that help tens of millions of people, all so Republicans can help their billionaire buddies with another tax break.”
Senate Budget ranking member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said his side’s amendments will “address the attacks on programs that support families” and “oppose massive tax giveaways to the richest.”
Not so ‘big, beautiful’
But even if Republicans adopt the resolution by week’s end, it may not have a long shelf life. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has already said he has no intention of taking up the Senate’s resolution.
House GOP leaders are determined to pass a more sweeping budget resolution of their own that would set the stage for “one big, beautiful” reconciliation bill that would combine border security and defense measures with provisions to extend the expiring tax cuts and offer new tax breaks sought by Trump. Those could include exempting tips and Social Security benefits from the income tax.
The package also calls for as much as $2 trillion in spending cuts over a decade and a $4 trillion increase in the nation’s borrowing limit.
Within an hour of Thune’s announcement, House GOP leaders were firing off retorts on X, arguing the House version is the only one that can deliver on all of Trump’s promises.
“The House budget resolution implements President Trump’s FULL America First agenda, not just parts of it with promises to come back later for the rest,” Johnson wrote. “We remain laser-focused on sending our bill to President Trump’s desk to secure the border, keep taxes low, restore American energy dominance, strengthen America’s military, and make government work better for all Americans.”
That may be easier said than done, however. Republicans currently hold 218 House seats, compared to 215 for Democrats, meaning they can’t afford to lose more than one GOP vote if all members vote and Democrats unite in opposition as expected.
The House Budget Committee approved its own budget resolution last week after several days of intensive negotiations behind the scenes to ease the concerns of arch conservatives who were pushing for deeper spending cuts. The panel voted along party lines for the resolution after adopting a last-minute amendment pushed by the rebellious Freedom Caucus that would require the size of tax cuts to be scaled back if $2 trillion in spending cuts isn’t achieved.
But it’s far from clear that Republicans will be united when the resolution hits the House floor sometime after this week’s recess. GOP moderates were already expressing reservations about the size of spending cuts that could hit programs like Medicaid.
Freshman Rep. Rob Bresnahan Jr., R-Pa., knocked off ex-Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., in a close 8th District race in the northeastern part of their state that includes Scranton, home of former President Joe Biden. In a Valentine’s Day statement, Breshanan reminded GOP leaders that his district is home to 200,000 Medicaid recipients, or about one-quarter of his constituents.
“If a bill is put in front of me that guts the benefits my neighbors rely on, I will not vote for it,” Bresnahan said.
Caitlin Reilly, Paul M. Krawzak and Aidan Quigley contributed to this report.
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