Senate to vote on budget resolution this week, speeding ahead of House

Washington — Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced Tuesday that the Senate will move forward with a vote on a budget proposal to begin enacting President Trump’s agenda this week, moving ahead of Republicans in the House who are pursuing a competing plan.

“It’s time to act on the decisive mandate the American people gave to President Trump in November,” Thune said in a post on X Tuesday afternoon, adding that “[s]ecuring the border, rebuilding our defense, and unleashing American energy” will begin “this week.”

The Senate’s budget resolution is the first of two the chamber intends to pursue under the reconciliation process. The first is focused on border security, defense and energy, while the second will address the extension of the 2017 tax cuts. 

The House is also moving forward with its own budget resolution, which would address the border security, defense, energy and tax priorities in a single bill. That could see a vote on the House floor as soon as next week. 

The Senate Budget Committee marked up its resolution last week, voting to advance it to the floor on Wednesday. During the committee meeting, the panel’s chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina touted the legislation, outlining that it would allow $175 billion to be spent on border security and $150 billion on military capabilities, while instructing committees to find reconciliation-compliant offsets to cut mandatory spending outside of Social Security. 

Graham acknowledged that while “there’s been a bit of debate between the House and the Senate about what to do and why,” he decided to move forward with the budget resolution due to a “sense of urgency” about implementing Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda. 

“The problem we have now is that ICE is running out of money,” Graham said. “And to my colleagues in the House, I hope you can pass one big beautiful bill meeting the priorities of President Trump and what we’ve been promising to do as a party. But we’ve got to move on this issue.”

The House also advanced its own budget proposal out of committee last week, which includes up to $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, spending cuts of at least $1.5 trillion and an increase of the debt ceiling by $4 trillion. The House is away this week on recess and plans to bring its own resolution when lawmakers return next week.

Thune’s announcement on Tuesday that the Senate will vote on the proposal as soon as this week marks a step forward. But approving the budget resolution is just one hurdle in the reconciliation process. 

Reconciliation allows lawmakers to bypass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate that makes advancing partisan legislation extremely difficult. But in order to use it, lawmakers must first approve identical budget resolutions through both chambers and direct committees to craft bills reconciling spending with the new budget goals. The legislation can ultimately include only provisions dealing with taxes, spending or the debt limit, and any new spending must be paid for. The Senate parliamentarian must also sign off on the package, and settles disputes over whether a provision has direct budgetary consequences.

Despite support among Senate Republicans for a two-bill approach, House Republicans have argued that passing two pieces of legislation carries a wider margin for error, given the narrow GOP majority in the lower chamber.

Senate Democrats have expressed opposition to the budget resolution. During the committee markup, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington called the resolution “pro-billionaire, anti-middle class,” while Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon warned of potential cuts to Medicaid, saying he expects an “effort to keep the Medicaid cuts hidden behind the curtain, but they’re going to come sooner or later.”