Senate Republicans are moving forward with a vote this week on their budget plan despite President Trump asking both chambers to approve the House budget that accommodates the “FULL America First Agenda.”
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham and other GOP senators described their budget resolution as “Plan B” in case House Republicans cannot secure enough votes to adopt the Trump-endorsed plan.
“You always need a Plan B around here,” Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, told reporters. “So we’re moving forward tomorrow with a vote-a-rama.”
The vote-a-rama is part of the process of advancing the budget. Senators can offer unlimited amendments to the budget resolution before a simple-majority vote to adopt it. Democrats are expected to force a series of political messaging votes attacking Republicans’ priorities that will begin Thursday and could stretch into Friday or the weekend.
Some Republicans questioned why they would go through that lengthy process on a budget that the House does not plan to take up.
“I’m a little baffled as to what we’re doing,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, noting he would only vote for the Senate budget if he gets assurances that Mr. Trump supports its advancement.
Vice President J.D. Vance attended Senate Republicans’ weekly lunch on Wednesday, hours after the president took to social media to endorse the House’s budget plan over the Senate’s version.
“The House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it!” Mr. Trump said. “We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget to ’kickstart’ the Reconciliation process, and move all of our priorities to the concept of, ’ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL.’”
Mr. Vance did not contradict the president, but he also did not discourage Republican senators from advancing their budget as a backup option.
Both chambers need to adopt identical budget resolutions with instructions to committees on what to include in forthcoming reconciliation legislation. Using the budget reconciliation process to pass their agenda allows Republicans to avoid the threat of a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.
The House budget resolution outlines instructions for cramming all of the president’s policy desires, including border security, immigration enforcement, defense, energy and sweeping tax cuts, into one, massive bill.
The Senate budget envisions splitting the priorities into two bills, with a first focused on funding for urgent national security priorities like border and defense and a second that would include the tax cuts.
House Republican leaders have warned that parsing out tax cuts from the rest of Mr. Trump’s agenda would be difficult to pass in the lower chamber.
The House plan anticipates finding savings from Medicaid, which Democrats assail as cuts to the government health coverage for the poor. Mr. Trump has picked the House version despite his vow not to touch Medicaid.
“Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched,” Mr. Trump said on Fox News.
Before Wednesday, Mr. Trump had taken a largely hands-off approach, waffling on what exactly he wanted congressional Republicans to do. He had previously said he preferred one bill, but also was fine with two bills and was more focused on the end result.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, wished the House success with their plan and added that Mr. Trump had made his preference for one bill known “for a long time.”
He said the Senate wasn’t ignoring the president’s wishes.
“If the House can produce one big beautiful bill, we’re prepared to work with them to get that across the finish line,” Mr. Thune said. “But we believe that the president also likes optionality. And the legislation that we’ll be working and voting on tomorrow addresses, as I said, those three critical priorities.”
The Senate budget resolution Mr. Graham crafted and advanced through his committee calls for up to $345 billion in new funding for border security, immigration enforcement and defense needs spread over four years and instructs committees to provide offsets over that same period.
The House budget resolution, which also advanced through committee last week, calls for up to $300 billion in spending on those same priorities over 10 years. It instructs House committees to slash at least $1.5 trillion in spending over a decade, but sets a higher goal of $2 trillion to appease a demand from debt hawks in the House Freedom Caucus.
The sweeping spending cuts are designed to help pay for tax cuts, and the amount Republicans ultimately come up with will dictate the ceiling for the net cost of the tax cuts.
The resolution sets a cost ceiling of $4.5 trillion for tax writers on the House Ways and Means Committee. If other committees cut more than $2 trillion in spending, tax writers can go further with tax cuts. If they fall short of that line, the Ways and Means Committee’s ceiling also falls.
Senate Republicans say the House budget does not provide enough room to permanently extend all of the 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire this year and include Mr. Trump’s new tax proposals.
“I’m pulling for the House to pull it together and get one big, beautiful bill, but it’s got to be consistent with President Trump’s tax agenda,” Mr. Graham said. “And right now, the tax agenda is to make the tax cuts permanent, and the House bill doesn’t do that. That would be a problem in the Senate.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer, North Dakota Republican, agreed that the House budget resolution would have trouble getting through the Senate where many Republicans have made a permanent extension of the 2017 tax cuts a top priority. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that it would cost $4.6 trillion.
“And you add to it how you pay for no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security benefits, no tax on overtime pay, the math gets way more complicated,” Mr. Cramer said.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.