WASHINGTON — The Senate dived into contentious debate Friday on a budget plan critical to Republican efforts to pass trillions of dollars in tax cuts and boost border security and defense spending through what President Donald Trump calls “one big beautiful bill.”
Passage of the plan would give Republicans the chance in coming months to muscle a tax cut bill through both chambers of Congress even if Democrats are unanimously opposed, just as they did in Trump’s first term.
Democrats are intent on making the effort as politically painful as possible, beginning with all-night votes on dozens of proposals that GOP senators will have to defend before next year’s mid-term elections, including on Trump’s tariff policies and the administration’s efforts to shrink the federal government.
Republicans are framing their work as preventing a tax increase for most American families. Unless Congress acts, the individual and estate tax cuts that Republicans passed in 2017 will expire at the end of this year.
“Republicans believe fundamentally that Americans know best what to do with their money,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota.
Democrats accused Republicans of laying the groundwork for increasing deficits and cutting key safety net programs such as Medicaid and nutritional assistance to help pay for tax cuts they say disproportionately benefit the wealthy.
“The investments that affect America’s future are hanging by a thread, and Republicans are about to cut it,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York.
The debate Friday was one-sided. Senate Democrats are taking full advantage of 25 hours of their debate time, while Republicans yielded much of theirs in order to get to an all-night frenzy referred to as a vote-a-rama. Once lawmakers have exhausted their amendments and themselves, they’ll move to a vote on the plan itself, most likely sometime Saturday morning.
The Senate is expected to approve the measure, although Republican Susan Collins of Maine has questioned the potential for Medicaid cuts under the package. The House will also have to pass it to unlock the process that Republicans can use to pass legislation with a simple majority and avoid a Democratic filibuster. That’s just the beginning.
Developing a final bill will take weeks, if not months, with Trump needing virtually every Republican vote to get a package over the finish line. Leaders will confront concerns from fiscal hawks in red states and congressional districts who want spending cuts to help pay for the tax breaks. They will confront dozens of lawmakers in swing districts and states worried about what those cuts will mean for their constituents, and their reelection chances.
It will be a delicate task with no guarantee of success, particularly as economic gyrations from Trump’s tariff policies test his ability to keep Republicans united.
The Senate’s budget plan allows for extending the individual and estate tax cuts under a scoring method that treats them as not adding to future deficits, even though a new estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation projects they will add $5.5 trillion over the next decade when including interest, and $4.6 trillion not including interest.
On top of that, the budget plan instructs the Senate Finance Committee to expand deficits by up to $1.5 trillion more over that same timeframe. That would give senators room to include some of Trump’s campaign promises, such as no tax on tips, Social Security benefits and overtime.
The budget plan also allows the Senate to increase the debt ceiling by up to $5 trillion. Final approval of such an increase would allow the federal government to continue to finance its debts and push any further votes on the matter until after next year’s mid-term elections. Trump is wary of giving Democrats the chance to extract concessions on a debt ceiling vote.
The plan also instructs four Senate committees to find at least $1 billion each in budget reductions. That’s just a small fraction of the potential tax relief. But the leadership is emphasizing that the instructions purposefully set a low floor for spending cuts to provide maximum flexibility and that committees will be on the hunt for far more.
Story by Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro. BDN writer Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.
