Senate leadership plans to forge ahead with the chamber’s skinnier budget resolution this week, despite President Donald Trump’s explicit endorsement of the House’s broader budget blueprint earlier Wednesday.
Vice President JD Vance’s appearance during Senate Republicans’ weekly lunch did little to sway Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., from his decision to proceed to floor consideration of the Senate budget, which would provide for a $340 billion-plus boost to spending on defense and border enforcement.
The Senate’s amendment “vote-a-rama” on the resolution could begin as soon as Thursday afternoon, Thune said. Each chamber needs to adopt the same budget resolution before either side can start writing their reconciliation bill, which enjoys procedural protections including avoidance of the Senate’s typical 60-vote hurdle to advance legislation.
“I think he’s made clear for a long time he would prefer one big, beautiful bill … but we believe the president also likes optionality,” Thune said, adding that the resolution would address immediate needs including border security. “All I can say is I think our colleagues are on board with the idea of proceeding and moving forward in a way that hopefully gets us an outcome here in the Senate and then we’ll see what the House is able to achieve next week.”
Thune and Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have pitched their slimmer budget resolution, which would leave the extension of more than $4 trillion in expiring tax cuts until later in the year, as a contingency plan if the House falters on its aim for one “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill.
Graham said Vance was receptive to that message.
“Nobody wants one big, beautiful bill that gets it right more than I do, but we need to move forward here,” Graham said following the lunch. “JD was very, very focused, prefers the one big, beautiful bill, but understands that we’re, we’re sort of plan B and keep moving.”
The House Budget Committee approved its budget resolution, which includes both tax and spending-cut instructions, last week before leaving town for recess. House leadership is working to shore up support needed to bring the resolution to the floor when the chamber returns next week.
“The House, as you know, is not here this week. If that bill had already been passed, that would be a different discussion,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said after the GOP lunch with Vance. “We want to move ahead with speed, with urgency.”
‘A little baffled’
Senate leadership’s decision to press on despite Trump’s insistence on the House’s strategy earlier in the day puzzled at least one senator. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he’s received contradictory information about where the president stands on the issue.
“I only know what the president has said publicly. We keep getting told by other people — leadership and others — that really he’s fine with two bills. He says he wants one, but he’s really fine with two,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said leaving the meeting. “I’m a little baffled as to what we’re doing.”
Trump earlier in the day praised the House’s budget resolution, which includes instructions for both tax and spending provisions, as the path to enacting “my FULL America First agenda.”
The Senate plan would wait until an undetermined time later in the year to pass an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which are expiring at the end of this year. Critics of that strategy, including Trump and House GOP leaders, say it injects too much uncertainty for businesses and households and risks forcing the narrowly divided House to take a difficult, separate vote without the sweeteners of added military and immigration enforcement funds.
“We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget to ‘kickstart’ the Reconciliation process, and move all of our priorities to the concept of, ‘ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL.’ It will, without question, MAKE AMERICAN GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote in his Wednesday morning social media post.
Graham in turn criticized the House resolution’s tax instruction, which would limit the Ways and Means Committee to increasing the deficit by no more than $4.5 trillion dollars over 10 years. That’s not enough to make permanent the expiring 2017 tax provisions or enact additional tax cuts Trump touted while campaigning, Graham said.
House GOP leaders are likely to face their own problems trying to get the House version ready for a floor vote, with centrists from swing districts opposed to cutting too deeply into Medicaid and food stamps.
Trump himself said in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday night that Medicaid cuts should be off the table. “None of that stuff is going to be touched,” he said, barring any instances of fraud or benefits for illegal migrants.
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