WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Republicans approved a budget resolution early Saturday that would help maintain the 2017 tax cuts, but the method of adding nearly $6 trillion to the deficit under external analysis is also paved.

51-48 votes We send compromises home. There, speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) hopes to adopt a tax and spending blueprint within the next week. Democrats did not support the bill, and the Democratic amendments were not accepted during the overnight marathon voting session.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul were the only Republicans to vote against the resolution, requiring only a majority vote under the complex processes used in the Senate.

The lengthy voting session known as the llama voting includes discussions on 28 revisions, one being adopted.

Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan was the sole member of either party. 51-48 votes. His corrections addressed Medicaid. Medicaid is a flashpoint in the fight over budgets, as is this year’s budget and Medicare.

Sullivan said his proposal would strengthen Medicaid; State and federal health programs for low-income people The GOP lawmakers at that home are looking at one place to cut spending, as well as Medicare, health insurance programs for the elderly, and some people with disabilities.

“We should all want to eliminate the waste, fraud and abuse of Medicaid and Medicare, and we must continue with these programs, we should do both,” Sullivan said.

Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden opposed the amendment, saying that it didn’t clearly define which “vulnerable people” Medicare and Medicaid are protected.

“By not defining anything vulnerable, the Sullivan Amendment is a code that allows states to cut profits and completely rid people of coverage,” Wyden said. “For me, Sullivan’s fix is ​​basically saying that if someone thinks you’re not poor enough, you’re not sick enough, or you’re not disabled enough, we’re not going to be there for you.”

Democrats have failed to make messaging revisions that deal with everything from Social Security Telephone Services to minimum wages and farmer contracts.

“Start the game”

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, Rs.C. said in a floor speech on Friday that the budget resolution will permanently extend tax cuts in 2017, enhance federal spending on border security and defense, rewrite energy policies and clear ways to reduce spending.

“This resolution opens up that process, which is done by the House and Senate approval committees,” Graham said. “So this does nothing but start the game. It’s time for this game to start.”

Wyden, a ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, vehemently opposed the budget resolution, saying the tax cuts it sets would primarily help the wealthy.

Wyden insisted Customs The enactment of President Donald Trump would deny the potential positive impact of future GOP tax cuts. Taxes were sent by the market for the second day in a row on Friday.

“People who follow along with us at home will hear many sweet-sounding promises from Republicans about what they are trying to achieve,” Wyden said. “They claim that their tax bills are all unicorns and rainbows. They’ll say that everyone will benefit from tax cuts, and a typical family will get the help they need.

“That’s not true. The reality is that unless it’s at the top of the revenue scale, the profits you can get from this Republican bill will be blown out of the water as Trump’s tariffs continue to raise inflation.”

Paul said he was “worried” about how his colleagues wrote the measure during his floor discussion.

“What I’m worried about is that so many things in Washington are smoke and mirrors,” Paul said. “On the one hand, it appears that all of this big savings are happening. But on the other hand, our previous resolution will increase our debt by $5 trillion.”

Paul offered amendments that would have changed these instructions to establish a three-month debt limit extension, but it was not agreed to follow. Voting 5-94.

Tax and Insurance Bill Framework

Congressional budgets are not bills, they are simultaneous solutions. In other words, you never go to the president for signing. That various provisions take effect when both chambers vote to adopt the same version.

The budget resolution does not include actual money either, and is just a plan for the next decade.

But it lays the foundation for GOP to use A complex settlement process To extend the 2017 tax law, many of them were set to expire at the end of this year.

Republicans plan to use the settlement bill to increase spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars and change their energy policy.

The budget resolution also includes instructions to raise debt limits by $4-5 trillion this year.

Reconciliation instructions Target 12 House and 10 Senate committees how much deficits can be increased, or the amount needed to reduce spending when drafting pieces of the package.

All of these panels are due to send bills to the Budget Committee by May 9th, so they can be sent together in one package to the floor.

House GOP set a minimum of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, while Senate Republicans cut their funding cuts by $4 billion. These major differences foresee the internal GOP struggle to achieve the final deal.

Nearly $6 trillion deficit increase

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office will ultimately calculate the impact of the bill on the deficit of the settlement bill’s writing, but some outside organisations say they disagree with how Republicans are going.

Non-party committees for responsible federal budgets Analysis released Friday, which marks the settlement bill, will increase its deficit of nearly $6 trillion over the next decade.

“A fraudulent invoice with a deficit of $5.8 trillion will be unprecedented,” the CRFB analysis states. “It will add 14 times more to the shortfall of the bipartisan infrastructure law ($400 billion), the American rescue plan ($1.8 trillion), and more than three times more than three times more than three times ($1.7 trillion) of the 2020 Care Act ($1.7 trillion).

“The tax cuts sought in budget plans are very expensive, creating economic risks associated with increased debt to expensive tax cuts that are distorted by the wealthy,” wrote Sharon Parrott, president of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank.

“Policymakers should not distort the budget by the desires of very wealthy people. “It means creating budgetary bills that will not raise the health and food costs of family members, but invest in making healthcare more affordable and expand child tax credits to support families facing challenges that provide the basics. These investments and low deficits can be achieved through sound tax policies that require businesses and the wealthy.

An analysis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, called the GOP budget resolution “a shipwreck of a fiscal train.”

Romina Boccia, director of budget and qualification policy, and Dominique Lett, policy analyst of budget and qualifications, write that Republicans need to start over.

“This budget has not just missed an opportunity. It will positively exacerbate our country’s debt trajectory,” they write. “This resolution sets a dangerous precedent by abandoning the concrete House spending cuts desperately needed in today’s high-debt environment, hiding the impact of the very true deficits of extended tax cuts and adopting the so-called current policy baseline that adds hundreds of billions to new deficit spending.

Last updated at 7:49am, April 5, 2025