Senate adopts fallback budget in case Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ falters

Senate Republicans adopted their budget early Friday morning that could pave the way for enacting President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda — but only if GOP lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol can rally around one strategy.

Senators voted 52-48 on the GOP budget resolution, with Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky joining all Democrats in opposition, after more than 10 hours of debate and 25 roll call votes on amendments.

Under normal circumstances, when one party controls Congress and the White House, adopting a budget resolution is the first step toward unlocking the power to pass major legislation outside the constraints of the Senate filibuster. This time, however, the action was largely symbolic. House Republicans are pursuing a vastly different approach, with Trump’s resounding backing this week, and there’s little indication at the moment of how and when the two chambers will find the common ground necessary to proceed with the massive legislative package they desire.

The Senate action was ultimately about broadcasting a direct message across the Capitol.

“To my House colleagues: I prefer one big, beautiful bill,” Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a floor speech before a marathon of amendment votes. “But we have to have a Plan B if you can’t get it done soon.”

On social media Thursday night, as the Senate was about to embark on the “vote-a-rama” amendment spree to adopt its budget measure, the president thanked Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Republican senators for “working so hard on funding the Trump Border Agenda.”

After speaking to Trump around that same time, though, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said Trump’s expression of thanks was “a very little nod towards” the Senate bill amid his explicit favoritism of the House’s budget.

“He made clear to me … he wants one big, beautiful bill. He said that two or three times on the phone,” Hawley told reporters. Asked why the Senate would work late into the night on a plan that doesn’t meet the president’s desires, Hawley responded: “Great question. That's sort of what he said to me.”

At stake is Trump’s first-year legacy — even as he continues to muddy the waters amid the House-Senate impasse that could jeopardize it.

The Senate’s budget resolution calls for a legislative package that would include up to $175 billion for border security and $150 billion in new defense spending, along with a variety of provisions designed to expand domestic energy production. But House Republicans want to adopt a budget resolution next week that would unlock the “big, beautiful bill” Trump has endorsed, pairing similar border security, defense and energy targets with trillions of dollars in tax cuts and at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts.

The Senate’s top tax writer, Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), said Thursday night that failing to extend “key” pieces of the 2017 tax cuts Republicans passed during the first Trump administration would be “economically devastating for millions of hard-working taxpayers.”

“The stakes couldn’t be higher,” Crapo said of the need to extend the tax cuts, which are due to expire at year’s end.

The Senate budget does not include a framework for extending those tax cuts, however, as GOP senators want to punt that task to a second party-line bill later this year.

Senate Republicans argue that their slimmed-down plan would more quickly deliver the president a deluge of military and border security cash, allowing Trump to make good on his campaign-trail promises without getting snagged by the complicated debate over balancing tax cuts with spending cuts. House GOP leaders argue that pushing off debate on an extension of the 2017 tax cuts is too great a risk, with many Republican leaders saying a failure to extend the cuts would throw the U.S. into a recession — not to mention hurt the reelection prospects of GOP incumbents.

The House’s catchall approach is due to face a critical test next week, when House Republicans have scheduled a Monday committee meeting to tee up their budget for floor debate. But Speaker Mike Johnson is still working to win over more than a dozen holdouts. The House budget resolution would call for committees to find at least $1.5 trillion in savings to pay for their bill, which would likely have to come from steep cuts to Medicaid, food assistance and Pell Grants. Moderate Republicans are balking at the proposition.

Senate Republicans are facing dissension within their own ranks, too, with a broad swath of conservatives warning they are ready for a weeks-long fight over how to pay for their own version of the party-line bill.

“What gives? Are Republicans for getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse — and reducing the deficit, balancing the budget, as the president says — or are they really for increasing spending by $340 billion?” said Paul, citing the spending increases the Senate budget framework would allow for the Pentagon, border security and the Coast Guard.

Ultimately, if GOP leaders in the House can wrangle the near unity necessary to adopt a budget measure that sets the stage for writing and passing one big bill, Senate Republicans are expected to embrace that overall strategy. That will, however, require senators to endure another vote-a-rama to approve that budget.

Democrats would welcome the opportunity, eager for chances in the coming months to force Republicans to take politically difficult votes on amendments that paint the party as uninterested in protecting services for middle-class and low-income Americans.

“We Democrats are glad to have this debate,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor. “Let's have it two or three more times. … Bring it on.”

Though the amendments were largely non-binding, Democrats forced Republicans on the record opposing issues like requiring insurers to cover in vitro fertilization, tax cuts for people making more than $1 million a year, stopping hedge funds from buying single-family homes and rehiring federal workers who have been fired in the first weeks of the Trump administration. Democrats also offered several amendments on protecting Medicaid and Medicare coverage, as well as blocking cuts to school lunch programs, local law enforcement agencies and research on bird flu.

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