The U.S. Senate on April 3 voted to move forward on a budget resolution to implement President Donald Trump’s agenda.
In a 52–48 vote, senators approved a motion to proceed on the budget resolution, unveiled by Senate Budget Committee chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on April 2.
The vote followed an hours-long delay as Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Republican leaders sought to lock in enough support to advance the resolution.
With 53 seats in the lower chamber, Thune could spare up to three defections. Ultimately, one Republican, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), voted against the motion.
The motion is a required step under the reconciliation process, which allows for measures related to taxing, spending, and the national debt to bypass the normal 60-vote filibuster requirement attached to most bills in the Senate.
It permits up to 50 hours for debate, but much of this will likely be ceded in order to allow the next step to move forward.
Reconciliation bills require votes on every amendment offered—leading to marathon vote series known in the Senate as a “vote-a-rama.” These often begin in the evening and extend well into the next morning, with some known to extend well beyond 6 a.m. the following day.
If all debate time is used, voting on amendments will not proceed until Saturday evening, though it’s more likely the series will begin sometime on Friday evening.
The centerpiece of the budget resolution is its bid to make Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent. While corporate tax rate cuts were made permanent at the time under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, personal income taxes were extended only to 2025.
Under the Byrd Rule, nothing in a reconciliation bill can be made permanent if it will have an impact on the deficit beyond ten years.
To comply with this rule, Graham announced that he had determined that “current policy” would be used to calculate the long-term impact of the bill—as opposed to “current law,” an esoteric distinction that can lead to differences in the calculated impact.
However, whether the bill meets the reconciliation requirements could still be subject to review by the Senate parliamentarian, the nonpartisan referee whose rulings have historically been respected as a matter of custom.
The resolution also proposes both new funding and spending cuts for various sectors of the federal government, though the House and Senate levels are still permitted to differ at this stage in the process to allow for flexibility. Both chambers must pass an identical budget resolution to begin the reconciliation process.
The final product is expected to include changes to funding for the border, energy, defense, and other policy areas.
To that end, the House is ordered to allocate $100 billion for defense while the Senate is ordered to put forward $150 billion for the same.
For homeland security—which includes Trump’s efforts to beef up the southern border and carry out mass deportations—the House is instructed to allocate $90 billion while the Senate is seeking $175 billion for the same purpose.
The Senate resolution makes no changes to a controversial aspect of the House’s budget resolution calling for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to find at least $880 billion in cuts—which could necessitate cuts to the Medicaid program, a potential political minefield for some lawmakers.
The resolution would order the House to raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, while the Senate instructions allow for up to $5 trillion.
Paul tied his lone opposition to this provision.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, told The Epoch Times in capital letters via text message that the Senate resolution was “dead on arrival” in the House due to its debt ceiling clause, and would alienate many other members of the caucus as well.
