Senate advances blueprint for Trump tax cuts, other top priorities

The Senate on Thursday advanced its budget resolution, teeing up a weekend vote on a blueprint for President Trump's tax agenda and other top priorities.

Senators voted 52-48 to kick off consideration of the measure. A simple majority was needed. The resolution sets out instructions that both chambers will eventually use to craft a bill they hope to pass through a process called budget reconciliation, which bypasses the Senate filibuster.

The vote was delayed on Thursday as Senate GOP leadership still had not locked down the requisite amount of votes to advance it along. The prior vote — on Harmeet Dhillon to become assistant attorney general — was held open for nearly two hours while Senate Majority John Thune (R-S.D.) and others tried to firm up the vote total. 

"There's, like there always is, questions, and this is complicated stuff," Thune told reporters during the vote. "People want to do their homework and want to be really informed when they make a decision."

"We were hearing folks out and obviously giving them a chance to want to explain their concerns and hopefully get some questions answered, and just make sure everybody had a comfort level with proceeding," he added.

In the end, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) voted against advancing the resolution due to the included debt ceiling increase. Other Republicans had previously expressed concern about possible Medicaid cuts that could be on the table but voted to open debate.

Central to the resolution is a plan to make Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent, which Senate Republicans say they will do using a controversial scoring method to make them appear deficit neutral.

“Republicans want to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent. Republicans want to reverse the Democrat failures of the past four years. Republicans are focused on getting America back on track,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said earlier on Thursday.

“This is what happens when Washington taxes less and taxpayers keep more of their hard-earned money,” he said after pointing to an anecdote in his home state. “It is good for families. It is good for businesses. It is good for our nation.”

Following Thursday’s vote, up to 50 hours of debate will take place and will be followed by a vote-a-rama — an hours-long session in which senators vote on amendments. Senators expect some of those 50 hours to be ceded and for the vote-a-rama to begin Friday evening and spill into the weekend.

The resolution includes different sets of instructions for the Senate and House in a few key areas that could present additional challenges as the chambers work toward a compromise.

The House instructions call for raising the debt limit by $4 trillion, while the Senate instructions detail a $5 trillion increase to the debt ceiling.

On the subject of spending cuts, members of the upper chamber only need to find $4 billion dollars to cut, compared with $1.5 trillion in the House. That is due to the Byrd Rule that governs the Senate, which the House does not have to contend with. Senate Republicans insist the $4 billion is only a floor for the cuts, but the number has outraged fiscal hawks in the House.

The resolution’s advancement comes days after Republicans announced that they do not plan to seek a ruling from Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, to greenlight usage of a scoring method called "current policy baseline" to calculate the cost of extending Trump's tax cuts. That maneuver effectively makes the cost of making the cuts permanent $0. 

Republicans are bypassing using the usual “current law” baseline, which would have required them to expire in the next decade.

Republicans maintain that Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) can decide to go down that route. 

“Using the current policy baseline is not some bizarre new gimmick,” Thune said on the floor on Thursday morning. “I should also note, of course, that the Senate parliamentarian has deemed the Senate budget resolution, which uses the budget policy baseline, in order and ready for floor consideration.” 

Democrats have cried foul and were quick to note that MacDonough did not rule specifically on the GOP plan to use it to score the bill. 

“Republicans blowing up our national debt to dole out massive tax cuts for billionaires is nothing new, but their attempt to use a ridiculous budget gimmick to try and evade long-standing budget rules and pretend their billionaire tax giveaways are somehow free is some next-level stuff,” Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said. 

This is the second time in less than two months the chamber will hold a vote-a-rama, having done so to advance the first part of its initially planned two-bill package to deal with the border and energy. The items that were part of that budget resolution — $175 billion for the border and $150 billion in defense spending — are both included in the latest version. 

Just like the first time, Democrats are expected to use amendment votes to put Republicans in a bind on a number of issues. Among those is on tariffs, following Trump’s rollout of reciprocal levies that rattled Wall Street. 

The focus on tariffs also comes after Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-Va.) resolution to undo Trump’s 25 percent tariff on Canadian imports passed with the support of four Senate Republicans, dealing a blow to the president in the process. 

The House is expected to take up the bill next week. Both chambers must adopt identical budget resolutions before they can move on to crafting the reconciliation bill, which can be passed at simple majority thresholds. 

Both chambers are set to kick off a two-week recess at the end of next week around Passover and Easter. Senate Republicans are discussing staying in session through the weekend to complete work on nominations, with an eye toward lopping off work days at the end of next week and kicking off the recess by midweek.