Senate Republicans unveiled a budget blueprint designed to fast-track a renewal of President Donald Trump's tax cuts and an increase to the nation's borrowing limit, ahead of a planned vote on the resolution later this week.
The Senate
Republicans say they are assuming that extending the expiring 2017 Trump tax cuts won't have any cost.
Trump embraced the plan, saying at a White House ceremony on Wednesday that it has his "complete and total support."
The draft is a sign that Senate Republicans are moving closer to resolving differences over how to pay for tax cuts by deciding larger tax cuts don't require larger spending reductions.
Lawmakers, however, have yet to face some of the most difficult decisions, including which spending to cut and which tax reductions to prioritize. That will be negotiated in the coming weeks after both chambers approve identical budget resolutions unlocking the process.
The Senate budget plan would also increase the debt ceiling by up to $5 trillion, compared with a $4 trillion hike in the House plan. Senate Republicans say they want to ensure that Congress does not need to vote on the debt ceiling again before the 2026 midterm elections.
"This budget resolution unlocks the process to permanently extend proven, pro-growth tax policy," Senate Finance Chairman Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, said.
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon blasted Republicans' math and warned of cuts to social welfare programs.
"No amount of gaslighting from Republicans about the true cost of their tax plan, now upward of $5 trillion, can hide the fact that they want to pay for handouts to billionaires and corporations by kicking millions of Americans off their health insurance, driving up child hunger and wiping out hundreds of thousands of jobs," Wyden said.
The blueprint is the latest in a multi-step legislative process for Republicans to pass a renewal of Trump's tax cuts through Congress. The bill will extend the president's 2017 reductions set to expire at the end of this year, which include lower rates for households and deductions for privately held businesses.
Republicans are also hoping to include additional tax measures to the bill, including raising the state and local tax deduction cap and some of Trump's campaign pledges to eliminate taxes on certain categories of income, including tips and overtime pay.
The plan would allow for the debt ceiling hike to be voted on separately from the rest of the tax and spending package. That gives lawmakers flexibility to move more quickly on the debt ceiling piece if a federal default looms before lawmakers can agree on the tax package.
Political realities
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on Wednesday, after meeting with Trump at the White House to discuss the tax blueprint, that he's not sure yet if he has the votes to pass the measure.
Thune said in a statement the budget has been blessed by the top Senate rules keeper but Democrats said that it is still vulnerable to being challenged later.
The biggest differences in the Senate budget from the competing House plan are in the directives for spending cuts, a reflection of divisions among lawmakers over reductions to benefit programs, including Medicaid and food stamps.
The Senate plan pares back a House measure that calls for at least $2 trillion in spending reductions over a decade, a massive reduction that would likely mean curbing popular entitlement programs.
The Senate GOP budget grants significantly more flexibility. It instructs key committees that oversee entitlement programs to make a minimum of $4 billion in cuts, less than 1% of the overall House target. Republicans said the cuts in the Senate plan are a floor and they expect the final tax package to contain much larger curbs on spending.
The Senate budget would also allow $150 billion in new spending for the military and $175 billion for border and immigration enforcement.
If the minimum spending cuts are achieved along with the maximum tax cuts, the plan would add $5.8 trillion in new deficits over 10 years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The Senate is planning a vote on the budget outline in the coming days. Then it goes to the House for a vote as soon as next week. There, it could face opposition from spending hawks include South Carolina's Ralph Norman, who are signaling they want more aggressive cuts.
House Speaker Mike Johnson can likely afford just two or three defections on the budget vote given his slim majority and unified Democratic opposition.
