April 4, 2025:
WASHINGTON (AP) — After a long wait, the Senate is launching action on President Donald Trump’s ”“big, beautiful bill” of tax breaks and spending cuts. But it’s coming at a risky moment for the U.S. and global economy after his announcement of steep tariffs. More than a month after House Republicans surprised Washington by advancing their framework for Trump’s package, Senate Republicans are ready to start voting on their version. It’s a next step in the long process. But work on the multitrillion-dollar package is coming as markets at home and abroad are on edge in the aftermath Trump’s vast tariffs scheme, complicating an already difficult political and procedural undertaking.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — After a long wait, the Senate is launching action on President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” of tax breaks and spending cuts at a risky moment for the U.S. and global economy.
More than a month after House Republicans surprised Washington by advancing their framework for Trump’s $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts, Senate Republicans voted Thursday to start working on their version. The largely party-line vote, 52-48, sets the stage for a potential Senate all-nighter Friday spilling into the weekend.
But work on the multitrillion-dollar package is coming as markets at home and abroad are on edge in the aftermath Trump’s vast tariffs scheme, complicating an already difficult political and procedural undertaking on what Republicans hope will become their signature domestic policy package.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., opened the chamber Thursday (April 3, 2025) saying they expected to be ready to begin.
Trump says he’s on board with the plan and Republicans, in control of Congress, are eager to show the party is making progress toward delivering on their campaign promises. By nightfall, as voting began, one Republican, the libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted against, as did all Democrats.
Democrats, as the minority party, don’t have the votes to stop the GOP plan. But they intend to use the procedural tools available to prolong the process. Democrats argue that Republicans are focusing on tax breaks for the wealthy at the expense of the programs and services millions of Americans rely on for help with health care, child care, school lunches and other everyday needs.
“They’re mean, they’re nasty, they’re uncaring,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said about the Republicans. “We, tonight and tomorrow, are going to show just who they are.”
Senate Democrats started consuming up to 25 hours of their available debate time, holding the floor into the night and railing against potential GOP cuts to Medicaid, veterans programs, DOGE cuts and the impact of Trump’s tariffs.
Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Budget committee, repeated a slogan he has been sharing: “Families lose and billionaires win.”
“That,” he said, “is the Republican plan.”
Fundamental to the Senate package is making sure Trump’s first-term tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year, are continued and made a permanent fixture of the tax code. The senators also will consider adding Trump’s proposed tax cuts on tipped wages, Social Security income and others.
The Senate package also would bolster border security funds by some $175 billion to carry out Trump’s mass deportation campaign, which is running short of cash, and it would add national security funds for the Pentagon — all priorities the Senate GOP tucked into an earlier version that was panned by House Republicans.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the party whip, said that without action tax cuts would expire, becoming a $4 trillion tax hike on Americans. “Republicans are focused on getting America back on track,” he said.
What’s unclear is how it will all be paid for, since Republican deficit hawks typically require spending offsets to help defray the lost tax revenue and avoid piling onto the nation’s $36 trillion debt load.
While House Republicans approved their package with $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and up to $2 trillion in spending cuts, the Senate Republicans are taking a different tack.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham is making the case that since the existing Trump tax breaks are the current policy, they are not considered new, and do not need to be offset with reductions in spending — an approach Democrats compare to “going nuclear” with the normal rules, particularly if the strategy is put to the test with an unfavorable ruling before the Senate parliamentarian.
Instead, Senate Republicans are considering offsets mostly for any new Trump tax breaks. Raising alarms from the most conservative budget hawks, the senators have set a floor of about $4 billion in budget reductions to health and other programs — a fraction of the package’s expected $4 trillion-plus price tag for tax breaks.
GOP leaders are assuring the deficit hawks within their own ranks that the legislation says the cuts can rise to as much as $2 trillion.
After an expected Friday night vote-a-rama, with dozens of amendments being offered to the package, the senators are planning to stay into Saturday if needed to take a final vote to approve it, sending it to the House for action.
The House and Senate will ultimately need to merge their frameworks into a final product, expected in May, but House Speaker Mike Johnson’s intention to have it all wrapped up by Memorial Day could prove optimistic.
The political environment is uncertain, and the public’s appetite for steep budget cuts is being tested in real time, with Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency headed by billionaire Elon Musk blazing through federal offices, firing thousands of workers and shuttering long-running government mainstays — from scientific research projects on diseases to educational services for schoolchildren to offices that help with Social Security, tax filing and the weather.
At the same time, the staunchest fiscal conservatives in both the House and Senate, many aligned with the Freedom Caucus, are pushing for even more cuts.
Trump told senators publicly and privately this week he would have their backs, particularly when it comes to standing up for the spending reductions. At a White House announcing the tariffs Wednesday, Trump said the Senate plan had his “complete and total support.”
The president’s steep tariffs threw the global economy into a tailspin Thursday, with stocks down around the world, the U.S. markets leading the way.
April 2, 2025:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans said they are pushing ahead on President Donald Trump’sbig bill of tax breaks and spending cuts this week, even though they’re punting some of the most difficult decisions — including the costs and how to pay for the multitrillion-dollar package — until later.
The Senate GOP’s budget framework would be the companion to the House Republicans’ $4.5 trillion tax cuts package that also calls for slashing some $2 trillion from health care and other programs. If the Senate can move the blueprint forward, it edges Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill closer to a compromise setting the stage for a final product in the weeks ahead.
“Obviously we are hopeful this week we can get a budget resolution on the floor that will unlock the process,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. “And so we are continuing to move forward with that.”
While big differences remain, Republicans face increasing political pressure to deliver on what is expected to be Trump’s signature domestic policy package — extending the tax cuts, which were initially approved in 2017, during his first term at the White House. Those tax breaks expire at the end of the year, and Trump wants to expand them to include new no taxes on tipped wages, overtime pay and other earnings, as he promised on the campaign trail.
Democrats are preparing to oppose the GOP tax plans as giveaways to the wealthy, coming as billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is taking a “chainsaw” to the federal government. They warn Republicans plan to slash government programs and services that millions of Americans depend on nationwide.
“We are standing together against the GOP tax scam and in defense of the American people,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said alongside others on the Capitol steps late Tuesday (April 1, 2025).
One main sticking point between the House and Senate GOP plans has been over whether the existing tax cuts, which are estimated to cost the federal government $4.5 trillion over the decade in lost revenue, need to be paid for by spending reductions elsewhere. Adding Trump’s new tax breaks to the package would balloon the price tag even higher.
To offset the costs, House Republicans are demanding some $2 trillion in cuts to health care and other accounts to stem the nation’s federal deficits and prevent the nation’s $36 trillion debt load from skyrocketing.
But GOP senators have a different approach. Senate Republicans take the view that since the tax cuts are already the current policy, they would not be new — and would not need to be paid for. They want to use this current policy baseline moving forward, meaning only Trump’s other proposed tax breaks would come with a new cost. They are expected to set much lower spending cuts as a floor that can be raised, if needed, to compromise with the House’s $2 trillion in cuts.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and top Democrats call the Senate GOP’s approach a gimmick at best — if not an outright “lie.”
“It is an obscene fraud and the American people won’t stand for it,” said Schumer, Sen. Jeff Merkley of the Budget Committee and Sen. Ron Wyden of the Finance Committee in a letter to GOP leadership.
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey argued against the GOP baseline as “a gimmick” that would slash important federal services while growing deficits.
“What they’re investing in is bigger tax cuts for the wealthiest,” Booker said during a landmark overnight speech.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and congressional GOP leaders have been meeting privately as Trump’s priority package churns on Capitol Hill. At a meeting with other Senate Republicans late Monday at the Capitol, Bessent urged them to get it done.
“We just got to start voting,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, as he exited the Monday evening session.
“Treasury secretary made the point that this was something we needed to do — and do it quickly,” Cornyn said, adding the plan was for the Senate to launch the voting this week. “We’re going to grind through it.”
Typically, the current policy baseline proposal would need to pass the muster of the Senate’s nonpartisan parliamentarian, to make sure it abides by the strict rules of the budget process. Senators from both parties have been arguing in closed-door sessions with the parliamentarian staff — for and against the idea.
However, the GOP leaders say they don’t necessarily need the Senate parliamentarian, at this point, to resolve the issue, and they believe the Senate Budget chairman, Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., should simply use his perch to allow their current policy baseline approach.
What is more certain is that they want to move quickly this week to pass the framework. That will entail a lengthy all-night vote — often called a vote-a-rama with consideration of various amendments and procedures — that could drag into the weekend. Then, they will sort out the details later as the Republicans, facing Democratic opposition, build the actual package for consideration in the weeks if not months ahead.
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