Senate GOP 'ready to go' on budget

Business & Economy

The Big Story

Senate could leapfrog over House on Trump agenda

Senate Republicans are plotting to move first on a budget resolution to advance the president's agenda as House Republicans remain deadlocked on how to move forward.

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) will brief Republican senators Wednesday on the plan to kick off work on a package focused on border security, energy and defense.

Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso (Wyo.) said that House Republicans “right now” are “not able to move at the level we’d like them to move.”

“We do have a bill ready to go here and Sen. Graham is going to be briefing the conference on that tomorrow at lunch,” Barrasso said.

Graham and other Republican senators are eager to get started on phase one of Trump’s agenda by moving a budget reconciliation package that would include about $100 billion in funding to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, reforms to expand oil and gas drilling and a substantial plus-up in defense spending.

Their plan would move legislation to extend the expiring 2017 tax cuts in a second budget reconciliation package later this year.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), however, told reporters Tuesday afternoon that the plan is still for the House, not the Senate, to move forward on a budget package that would encompass border security, energy, defense and tax legislation.

The Hill's Alexander Bolton and Emily Brooks have more here.

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