by Jennifer Shutt, Kentucky Lantern
April 5, 2025

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans, in the early morning hours Saturday, approved their budget resolution that will aid the party in maintaining the 2017 tax cuts but also paves the way for them to add nearly $6 trillion to the deficit under an outside analysis.

The 51-48 vote sends the compromise measure to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., hopes to adopt the tax-and-spending blueprint within the next week. No Democrats backed the bill and no Democratic amendments were accepted during an overnight marathon voting session.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul were the only two Republicans who voted against the resolution, which needed only a majority vote under the complicated process being used in the Senate.

The lengthy voting session, known as the vote-a-rama, included debate on 28 amendments, with one adopted.

Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan was the only member of either party to have their change agreed to, following a 51-48 vote. His amendment addressed Medicaid, which has become a flash point in the battle over the budget this year, as well as Medicare.

Sullivan said his proposal would strengthen Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower-income people that House GOP lawmakers are looking at as one place to cut spending, and Medicare, the health insurance program for seniors and some people with disabilities.

“We should all want to weed out waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid and Medicare, and we must keep these programs going. We should do both,” Sullivan said.

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden spoke against the amendment, saying it didn’t clearly define which “vulnerable people” would have their access to Medicare and Medicaid protected.

“By not defining the vulnerable, the Sullivan amendment is code for states to cut benefits or kick people off their coverage altogether,” Wyden said. “To me, the Sullivan amendment basically says if somebody thinks you’re not poor enough, you’re not sick enough, or you’re not disabled enough, we’re not going to be there for you.”

Democrats unsuccessfully offered messaging amendments dealing with everything from Social Security phone service to the minimum wage to contracts with farmers.

‘Start the game’

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said during a floor speech Friday the budget resolution will clear the way for lawmakers to extend the 2017 tax cuts permanently, bolster federal spending on border security and defense, rewrite energy policy and cut spending.

“The resolution opens up that process that will be done by the House and Senate authorizing committees,” Graham said. “So this doesn’t do anything other than start the game and it’s time this game started.”

Wyden, ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, vehemently opposed the budget resolution, saying the tax cuts it sets up would predominantly help the wealthy.

Wyden argued the tariffs that President Donald Trump has instituted would negate any potential positive impacts of the upcoming GOP tax cuts. The tariffs sent markets diving on Friday for a second day in a row.

“People following along at home are going to hear a lot of sweet-sounding promises from Republicans about what they’re trying to accomplish,” Wyden said. “They claim their tax bill is just all unicorns and rainbows. They’ll say everybody is going to benefit from a tax cut and typical families will get the help they need. They’ll promise rising wages and a booming economy.

“It’s just not true. The reality is, unless you’re way out at the upper end of the income scale, any benefit you get from this Republican bill is going to get blown out of the water as the Trump tariffs continue to hike inflation.”

Paul said during floor debate that he was “concerned” about how his colleagues had written the measure.

“What worries me is that so many things in Washington are smoke and mirrors,” Paul said. “On the one hand, it appears as if all of this great savings is happening. But on the other hand, the resolution before us will increase the debt by $5 trillion.”

Paul offered an amendment that would have changed those instructions to set up a three-month debt limit extension, but it was not agreed to following a vote of 5-94.

Framework for tax hikes and policy bill

Congress’ budget isn’t a bill but a concurrent resolution, meaning it never goes to the president for a signature. Its various provisions take effect once both chambers vote to adopt the same version.

The budget resolution also doesn’t include any real money, just plans for the next decade.

But it does lay the groundwork for the GOP to use the complex reconciliation process to extend the 2017 tax law, much of which was set to expire at the end of this year.

Republicans plan to use that reconciliation bill to boost spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars and make changes to energy policy.

The budget resolution also includes instructions to raise the debt limit by between $4 and $5 trillion later this year.

The reconciliation instructions give a dozen House committees and 10 Senate committees targets for how much they can increase the deficit or how much they need to cut spending when they draft their pieces of the package.

All of those panels are supposed to send their bills to the Budget committees before May 9, so they can be bundled together in one package and sent to the floor.

The House GOP set a minimum of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, while Republicans in the Senate set a floor of $4 billion in funding reductions. Those vast differences foreshadow an internal GOP struggle to achieve a final deal.

Nearly $6 trillion deficit increase

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office will ultimately calculate the deficit impact of the reconciliation bill once it’s written, but several outside organizations have said they disagree with how Republicans are moving forward. 

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released an analysis Friday showing the reconciliation bill would increase deficits during the next decade by nearly $6 trillion.

“A $5.8 trillion deficit-increasing bill would be unprecedented,” CRFB’s analysis states. “It would add 14 times as much to the deficit than the bipartisan infrastructure law ($400 billion), more than three times as much as American Rescue Plan ($1.8 trillion), three times the 2020 CARES Act ($1.7 trillion), and nearly four times the original score of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act ($1.5 trillion). In fact, it would add more to the deficit than all four of these major laws combined.”

Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, wrote in a statement “the tax cuts called for in the budget plan are so expensive that deficits will rise substantially, raising economic risks associated with higher debt in service to expensive tax cuts skewed to the wealthy.”

“Policymakers need to course-correct and remember their campaign pledges to help ease families’ strained budgets, not contort the budget to the desires of the very wealthy,” Parrott wrote. “That would mean crafting a budget bill that doesn’t raise families’ health and grocery costs but instead invests in making health care more affordable and expands the Child Tax Credit to support families who face challenges affording the basics. These investments and lower deficits can be achieved by a sounder tax policy that requires corporations and the wealthy — who benefit enormously from public investments — to pay their fair share.”

An analysis from The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, called the GOP budget resolution a “fiscal train wreck.”

Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy, and Dominik Lett, a budget and entitlement policy analyst, wrote that Republicans need to start over.

“This budget isn’t just a missed opportunity; it actively worsens our nation’s debt trajectory,” they wrote. “The resolution abandons the House’s concrete spending reductions desperately needed in today’s high-debt environment, sets a dangerous precedent by adopting a so-called current policy baseline that hides the very real deficit impact of extending tax cuts, and adds hundreds of billions in new deficit spending. The Senate should go back to the drawing b

Last updated 8:49 a.m., Apr. 5, 2025

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