Senate GOP plots changes to House budget blueprint
By: Riley Beggin
Savannah Kuchar
and Sudikeha Kochi
USA Today
WASHINGTON - House Republicans' budget plan to enact President Donald Trump's agenda has already hit a snag.
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Senate Republicans.
..... The upper chamber is demanding changes to the budget blueprint passed late Tuesday [02/25/2025] night before they'll vote on it. Approval would kick off the process of filling the shell bill with policy.
..... "Will the be changes in the Senate>" said Senator John Kennedy, R-Louisiana. "The short answer is yes. The long answer is hell yes."
..... The House plan sets out a total amount of money Congress can spend on Trump's priories and how much it must cut from the federal budget to offset those costs.
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That proposal gives lawmakers room to extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts and implement new ones at a cost of $4.5 trillion. It would allocate $300 billion for defense and border security, and would raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion over two years.
..... But it would also necessitate at least $2 trillion in federal cost savings over 10 years. That includes $880 billion from the House Energy and Commerce Committee - an amount that tax policy experts say would likely require cuts to Medicaid, the program that provides helaht insurance to 72 million low-income Americans.
..... "I don't love that," said Senator Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, who represents a state with 1.2 million residents enrolled in Medicaid. "I will predict to you that the resolution in the form will not be voted on the Senate floor.
..... Senator Jim Justice, R-West Virginia, also said Medicaid is "monstrously important" in his state, where almost 500,000 people are enrolled, but that something need to be done about the federal deficit.
..... "I think it;s premature for us to run through the village with our hair on fire," he said. "We absolutely will watch, and we're concerned as we should be, but at the same time we all know we've got to do something about the mess."
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Other senators raised concerns about the package's size: too big, or not big enough?
..... "Nobody can justify $7 trillion of spending. You can't justify that now that the (2020 coronavirus) pandemic's slowing down," said Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin. "All my Republican colleagues probably ran on 'zero-based budgeting,' right? They obviously weren't serious about it."
..... However, most senators, including Senate GOP leadership, were concerned that the package extends the tax cuts enacted under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act but doesn't make them permanent.
..... Senator Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, chair of the Senate Budget Committee, wrote Wednesday [02/26/2025] morning on X, "I appreciate the House's efforts,' and said he plans to work with the lower chamber to "strengthen the tax cut provisions by making them permanent in order to meet President Donald Trump's priorities."
..... Reconciliation bypasses the Senate's 60-vote filibuster threshold - but the policy must be related to spending or taxation to qualify. Former President Joe Biden used the strategy when passing his agenda through the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Recuse Plan.