The Senate early Saturday adopted changes to a House budget blueprint for enacting President Trump’s agenda despite pushback from fiscal hawks in the lower chamber.
The 51-47 vote, which came after a relatively short six-hour “vote-a-rama” in which senators could offer unlimited amendments, fell mostly along party lines.
The exceptions were two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky, voting against their party.
The budget includes tax and spending instructions that committees must follow in drafting the reconciliation legislation that will carry the bulk of the president’s agenda. Republicans plan to load up that bill with sweeping tax and spending cuts, a debt limit increase, energy policy, and funding for border security, immigration enforcement and defense.
The reconciliation process allows the GOP to pass the president’s agenda without the threat of a filibuster in the Senate, but only after both chambers adopt a unified budget blueprint.
The House is expected to take up the Senate-altered budget next week. President Trump, who endorsed the latest changes, will have to leverage his power over the GOP to sway House holdouts to adopt the budget so Republicans can finally move on after months of back and forth over this initial step.
Several House GOP fiscal hawks have said they oppose the Senate changes because they signal the upper chamber is not serious about spending cuts.
The budget sets spending cut floors for committees in the House and Senate that are drastically different.
The collective House floor is $1.5 trillion over 10 years, and the Senate’s is $5 billion. Senate Republicans said they had to keep their committees’ instructions low to comply with strict reconciliation rules that provide zero room to fall short of the targets.
Both chambers have set broader goals to go beyond their floors and cut at least $2 trillion, but there is no mechanism enforceable under the Senate rules to ensure that amount is achieved.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the GOP’s goal of reducing deficits will occur through a combination of reduced spending and regulations and pro-growth policies like permanently extending Mr. Trump’s first-term tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of the year.
“That will unleash investment in America, and which will lead, ultimately, not only to better-paying jobs, lower unemployment, hopefully a narrowing of the income disparity that we have in this country, but also, interestingly enough, higher government revenues,” the South Dakota Republican said.
Senate Republicans’ top priority in tweaking the House budget plan was to create room to make individual and small business tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent.
They did that by stating plans to use a “current policy” baseline that will not count the cost of extending tax cuts already in law, discounting what would be measured as roughly a $4 trillion deficit increase under the standard “current law” baseline the Congressional Budget Office uses.
The Senate budget instructions provide the tax-writing Finance Committee with up to $1.5 trillion in room to increase deficits for new tax cuts, like Mr. Trump’s proposals to exempt tips and overtime income.
Mr. Paul opposed the budget primarily because it calls for a $5 trillion debt limit increase that would last through the 2026 elections.
He offered an amendment to change that to a $500 billion increase, expected to extend the debt limit for three months. It was rejected 5-94.
“Washington will borrow $2 trillion this year just to keep the lights on. Handing Congress another $5 trillion blank check ensures nothing changes,” Mr. Paul said. “My amendment gives Congress a 3-month runway to give them a chance to prove they’re willing to follow through on their commitments to reduce spending.”
The only other Republican to offer an amendment during the vote-a-rama was Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan.
His proposal, which was adopted 51-48, added language giving Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham flexibility to adjust the budget’s spending cut targets to protect Medicaid or strengthen and improve it for the most vulnerable populations.
Mr. Sullivan’s amendment was the first offered and designed to shore up Republicans’ messaging against Democratic attacks. That didn’t stop some GOP senators from crossing the aisle on the other party’s Medicaid amendments, although those were all rejected.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee which has jurisdiction over Medicaid in the Senate, offered an amendment to strike the instruction to the House Energy and Commerce Committee to find $880 billion in savings.
The target is so large that the Energy and Commerce panel will have to find some of those savings from Medicaid, which makes up the bulk of mandatory spending under its jurisdiction.
Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley cosponsored Mr. Wyden’s amendment and two other Republicans, Ms. Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined him in support.
Ms. Collins ultimately voted against the budget blueprint because she was concerned about the potential cuts to Medicaid.
Democrats offered four other amendments related to preventing Medicaid or health care cuts that Mr. Hawley and Ms. Collins supported. Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Murkowski each voted for one.
All of the amendments Democrats offered during the vote-a-rama were rejected, but a handful drew a few Republican votes.
Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski voted for an amendment from Sen. Ben Ray Luján, New Mexico Democrat, to strike an instruction to the House Agriculture Committee to find $230 billion in savings, which is expected to include cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, the official name for food stamps.
They, along with Mr. Sullivan, also supported an amendment to reverse Department of Government Efficiency cuts to the Social Security Administration.
Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski also backed an amendment to prevent any disruption in security assistance to Ukraine.
Republicans remained unified against several other Democratic messaging amendments, including one to prohibit war plans from being communicated over commercial messaging applications after the Signal group chat controversy and another to nullify the president’s tariffs if the cost of goods goes up.
“Democrats gave Senate Republicans the chance to hit the kill switch on Donald Trump’s tariffs, on DOGE, on the attacks against Social Security and Medicaid and Medicaid. And at each opportunity they refused,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat.
Notably, Democrats did not force roll call votes on most of their amendments related to messaging against tax cuts for the wealthy, letting Republicans reject those by voice vote save for one.
Sen. Jacky Rosen, Nevada Democrat, offered an amendment that she said would “level the playing field by cutting taxes for the middle class and small businesses, while ensuring big corporations and ultra-wealthy pay their fair share.”
It was rejected 52-47, with only Ms. Collins crossing the aisle in support.
