Republicans pushed their skinny budget plan through the Senate Friday after a nearly 10-hour vote-a-rama that allowed Democrats to force votes on a variety of concerns, including food costs, bird flu and the recent mass firings of government workers.
The Senate debate also highlighted some major fault lines between House and Senate Republicans over possible spending cuts.
The Senate is taking a two-step approach to enacting President Donald Trump’s policy priorities, starting first with a plan to increase spending on the military and border security and leaving the mostly tax issues until later in the year.
The Senate resolution, adopted 52-48, would allow more than $500 billion in deficit spending while requiring relatively minor cuts in existing programs, including as little as $1 billion from programs under the purview of the Agriculture Committee. Kentucky Republican Rand Paul voted against the resolution because he wants much bigger spending cuts.
Trump this week threw his support behind the House GOP’s approach, which is designed to move his entire agenda all at once, including massive spending and tax cuts. The House is scheduled to take up a budget resolution next week that calls for up to $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, including at least $230 billion in Agriculture Committee programs.
The House and Senate will eventually have to agree on a budget resolution that will provide the blueprint for a budget reconciliation bill needed to enact the tax cuts and changes in spending.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., reiterated to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday that there can only be one reconciliation bill. “It has to be by necessity, because that gives us the highest probability of success,” he said.
But the Senate defeated overwhelmingly, 24-76, a Paul amendment calling for spending cuts in line with the House GOP resolution, including a $230 billion cut in Agriculture Committee programs, which would almost certainly require cutting SNAP benefits.
The Senate also adopted an amendment by Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, to “strengthen and improve Medicaid,” a health-care program for low-income families that would be slashed under the House GOP plan. Only two Republicans voted against the amendment, John Curtis and Mike Lee, both of Utah.
Even though this Senate resolution doesn’t make room for tax cuts, including an extension of expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Democrats still used the debate to portray Republicans as ignoring the needs of average Americans to fund benefits for the wealthy.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune reiterated that the Senate GOP eventually intends to try to make the expiring provisions permanent; the ceiling set by the House GOP resolution would allow for only a temporary extension. “Hardworking Americans shouldn’t have to live in fear of a tax hike every few year, and businesses need a clear picture of the tax outlook so they can plan for the long term,” Thune told colleagues.
An amendment proposed by the top Democrat on the Senate Ag Committee, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, would have barred any tax cuts for billionaires if there is any increase in the Consumer Price Index for food.
“While grocery prices continue to increase, seniors, children, and veterans should not be left hungry to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,” she told her colleagues. “This is making it harder and harder for Americans to put dinner on the table.”
Her amendment got one GOP vote, from Susan Collins of Maine, and failed 48-52.
An amendment proposed by another Senate Ag Democrat, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, called for “prohibiting reductions to funding and staff (including veterinarians) that monitor, respond to, control, mitigate, and prevent the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza.”
Slotkin noted that USDA is scrambling to rehire personnel who work on HPAI control and were laid off in mass firings last weekend.
The virus is spreading and moving between species, and egg prices are skyrocketing, “but instead of dealing with that problem head-on as a responsible administration would, they are cutting people who are working on avian flu monitoring, who are helping understand how we prevent the spread of yet another biohazard,” Slotkin said.
Republicans defeated her amendment on a party-line vote, 47-53.
Among other amendments, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, broke party ranks and supported a proposal by Michael Bennet of Colorado that called for reinstating fired employees at the Forest Service, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
Sullivan was the lone Republican to support an amendment by Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to protect wildland firefighters.
An amendment by Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., to protect school meals from cuts was defeated, 49-51, but got the support of two Republicans, Collins and Sullivan.
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