The Senate was churning through amendments in a marathon voting session that began Thursday evening and stretched into early Friday on a GOP-drafted budget resolution that would pave the way for a filibuster-proof border security, defense and energy package.
Republicans were virtually guaranteed to steamroll past Democratic opposition because only a simple majority is needed to adopt the fiscal 2025 blueprint, and the GOP holds 53 seats.
But Democrats hoped to make the process as long and as painful as possible. They filed hundreds of amendments designed to express their opposition to a budget reconciliation plan that could ultimately require deep cuts in federal spending to finance the extension of expiring tax cuts that they say mostly favor the wealthy.
The so-called vote-a-rama, which was stretching into the wee hours of Friday morning, could also provide election campaign talking points as Republicans try to rally behind President Donald Trump’s agenda and Democrats seek to build public opposition to it.
“Democrats are going to hold the floor all day long — and all night long — to expose how Republicans want to cut taxes for billionaires while gutting things Americans care about most: health care, jobs, public safety, national security, housing, education,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said earlier on the floor Thursday. “This is going to be a long, drawn-out fight.”
The first amendment out of the gate early Thursday evening, offered by Schumer, would trigger a point of order preventing consideration of a reconciliation bill that provides a tax cut to billionaires unless backers secure 60 votes to waive it. Republicans said they want to extend tax cuts for households of all incomes to prevent a tax increase.
The tax debate would be shelved for the time being under the budget blueprint Senate Republicans are taking up, however. Senate Finance Chairman Michael D. Crapo, R-Idaho, raised his own point of order against Schumer’s amendment on grounds that it was not germane to the underlying resolution.
Schumer’s motion to waive the point of order was rejected 47-52, coming up well short of the 60 votes needed.
The budget resolution, which the Budget Committee advanced last week along party lines, 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.
It would not provide reconciliation instructions for the tax bill Republicans want to enact ahead of the year-end expiration of the 2017 tax cuts, in order to keep the immediate focus on delivering a win on immigration enforcement. The tax bill, Senate Republicans argue, will take longer to hash out and agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement that are running out of money can’t wait.
Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham said the package was critical to head off a “national security nightmare” at the southern border by ensuring a speedy infusion of $175 billion for additional personnel, detention beds and border wall construction. And he said the Pentagon needs an additional $150 billion because “the world is on fire” and weapons stockpiles must be replenished.
Graham, R-S.C., said authorizing committees would have the discretion to decide what exactly to spend on border security and defense, while other committees would decide what programs to cut to offset the cost. The budget resolution is a nonbinding document that isn’t signed into law, he stressed.
“There’s nothing in this resolution directing one dime of spending, and no spending bill can be implemented without presidential signature,” Graham said. “So I want to make sure that’s clear.”
Plan B
The voting comes just a day after Trump undercut the Senate effort by explicitly endorsing the competing House plan for a comprehensive “big, beautiful” reconciliation package that would also include the extension of expiring tax cuts, new tax breaks, a major increase in the nation’s borrowing limit, deep spending cuts and more.
House leaders have insisted on a single-bill approach, saying it stands the best chance of winning the near-unanimous GOP support needed in the razor-thin House majority.
But Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., doubled down on his chamber’s two-bill strategy Thursday, saying more time is required to enact tax legislation while border security funding is needed immediately.
“The last thing we want is to delay other parts of the president’s agenda, like border security, while we do the work to arrive at a tax agreement that will pass both houses of Congress,” he said in a floor speech. “That’s why the Senate is moving forward on a two-part legislative plan to accomplish our and the president’s top priorities.”
Thune also critiqued the House plan, saying it would not provide enough money to make the expiring tax cuts permanent. The House budget resolution would limit the tax package to $4.5 trillion over 10 years. House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., has said that amount of funding would be insufficient to make the tax cuts permanent and offer new tax breaks sought by Trump, including exemptions from the income tax for tips and Social Security benefits.
“Hardworking Americans shouldn’t have to live in fear of a tax hike every few years, and businesses need a clear picture of the tax outlook so they can plan for the long term,” Thune said.
House Republican leaders are currently planning to bring their resolution to the floor next week, with that chamber’s Rules Committee scheduling a meeting Monday afternoon to set the terms of debate. But there’s been no indication they’ve been able to unite warring factions in the party around the resolution.
In the process of placating the hard-right Freedom Caucus by requiring deeper spending cuts to make room for the tax package, GOP leaders moved further away from what party centrists say they can support. On Wednesday, a handful of Republicans told Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., they couldn’t support a plan that cuts too deeply into Medicaid, food stamps or college aid programs that benefit Latino voters in their districts.
Medicaid angst
There’s reason to believe such a budget package would have difficulty in the Senate as well. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., filed an amendment that would create a “deficit-neutral reserve fund” — a nonbinding way to show support for a legislative effort — to prevent any Medicaid cuts.
Another Schumer amendment, which expresses opposition to Medicaid cuts used as offsets for billionaires’ tax cuts, was unsuccessful. But GOP leaders were concerned enough about it that Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, offered his own, competing amendment to put senators on record supporting legislation “strengthening and improving Medicaid for the most vulnerable populations” and extending the life of the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund.
Senate Finance ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Sullivan’s amendment used the term “most vulnerable” as code for restricting Medicaid benefits for those who are “not poor enough, not sick enough, not disabled enough” to be eligible. A Senate Democratic leadership aide said the language dealing with Medicare would open the door to raising the eligibility age.
Schumer’s amendment went down on a 49-51 vote, which wasn’t enough to waive the 60-vote point of order Republicans lodged against it. Hawley as well as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine — who faces a potentially tough reelection bid next year — were the only Republicans crossing party lines to back the amendment.
Subsequently, Sullivan’s amendment was agreed to on a 51-49 vote, with Utah Republicans Mike Lee and John Curtis voting “no.”
Collins and Hawley also voted with Democrats to support an amendment from Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff that would express support for protecting access to maternal and pediatric health care through Medicaid. It was defeated 49-51.
Senate Republicans are pitching their skinnier plan as a backup option if their House counterparts can’t deliver, which Vice President JD Vance didn’t discourage during his Senate GOP lunch visit on Wednesday.
While Senate Republicans appear mostly united on their budget plan, Rand Paul of Kentucky is a lonely voice of opposition.
He pointed to conflicting messages being sent in Trump’s Washington: While Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency” were going around culling waste from federal agencies, the Senate GOP was getting ready to tee up more than $340 billion in new spending.
“Things are not what they appear to be,” Paul said on the floor.
He filed an amendment to increase the size of the required spending cuts to more than $1.4 trillion. It was rejected, 24-76.
Egg prices
While Democrats prepared hundreds of amendments to poke holes in the GOP plan, many were unlikely to be offered on the floor. While budget rules set no limit on the number of amendments that can be offered, senators usually cut their losses and end the vote-a-rama when their stamina runs out in the wee hours of the morning.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., had the second amendment after Schumer’s, a symbolic effort expressing opposition to tax cuts for billionaires if food prices keep rising. An effort by Klobuchar to waive a point of order by Crapo against her amendment fell short 48-52. Collins was the lone Republican to back Klobuchar’s amendment.
In another colorful example along those lines, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., filed an amendment to create a reserve fund “relating to lowering the price of eggs for American consumers” by calling for the reversal of any cuts to programs or staffing dedicated to respond to the avian flu.
Other amendments filed Thursday include:
- A Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., amendment to create a deficit-neutral reserve fund prohibiting the closure or relocation of federal agencies without congressional authorization.
- An amendment by Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., to create a point of order against legislation restricting future increases to nutrition assistance benefits.
- A Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., amendment that would establish a reserve fund to prevent the Department of Veterans Affairs from reducing the workforce “in a manner that impacts veterans.”
- An amendment by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., to block the defunding of “environmental and public health protection, pollution abatement and resilient infrastructure.”
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