Senate approves GOP budget plan after overnight vote-a-thon

The Senate approved Republicans' budget blueprint just after 2:30 am Saturday to clear the way for passing President Donald Trump's domestic agenda, after Democrats forced an overnight session to protest the GOP push to deliver what the president has called "one big beautiful bill" of spending and tax cuts.

The 51-48 vote, mostly along party lines, was a crucial step in the Republican effort to fast-track budget legislation through Congress and shield it from a filibuster through a process known as reconciliation.

Disagreements between Republicans in the House and the Senate about what should be in that bill had paralyzed them for weeks, but they have forged a fragile and complex compromise allowing them to move forward.

Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine were the only Republicans who voted to oppose the measure.

The budget blueprint goes next to the House, which must adopt it before lawmakers in both chambers can set to work drafting the legislation laying out the specific tax and spending cuts they want to enact.

"This resolution is the first step toward a final bill to make permanent the tax relief we implemented in 2017 and deliver a transformational investment in our border, national and energy security," Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, said before the vote.

He added later, "Let's let the voting begin."

But before Republicans could push through the resolution, they first had to wade through an hourslong ritual known as a vote-a-rama, a marathon of rapid-fire votes on amendments to budget measures. The proposals had little chance of becoming law, but the process allowed Democrats to force a series of politically fraught votes they hope to use to attack Republicans in campaign advertisements later.

Democrats forced Republicans to weigh in on amendments protesting Trump's escalating global trade war, Elon Musk's cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, the GOP's proposed cuts to Medicaid and the recent use of Signal by national security officials in the Trump administration to discuss a sensitive military operation.

"Our amendments will give Republicans the chance to join us in hitting the kill switch on Donald Trump's tariffs, on DOGE, on the attacks against Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid," Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said Friday night before voting started. "Republicans could snuff it out instantly tonight if they wanted. Will Republicans join us tonight and stand up to Donald Trump before he craters the economy?"

It was the second such overnight voting session for the Senate this year, and Republicans -- even those who have publicly expressed concerns about Trump's tariffs and Musk's government-cutting initiative -- largely held together against Democrats' efforts to alter their budget plan.

On a 53-46 party-line vote, the Senate rejected a proposal offered by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., to prohibit the use of "any commercial messaging application" to transmit information revealing the timing, sequencing or weapons to be used in impending military operations.

In another party-line vote, Republicans opposed en masse an amendment by Schumer to rescind Trump's tariffs if they increased the cost of Americans' groceries. They also defeated an amendment to prevent any disruptions in continuing security assistance to Ukraine, though two Republicans -- Collins and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska -- joined Democrats to support it.

Three Republicans -- Collins, Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska -- voted with Democrats to reverse Musk-imposed cuts to the Social Security Administration. The vote still failed, 49-50.

Collins and Murkowski, along with Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., broke with their party to support a bipartisan amendment from Hawley and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to eliminate the Medicaid cuts envisioned in the plan. The measure, which failed 49-50, would have deleted an instruction to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, to find $880 billion in spending reductions.

Senators did vote 51-48 to adopt an amendment offered by Sullivan vowing to protect Medicare and Medicaid.

The budget resolution itself leaves big questions unresolved.

In February, House Republicans passed a measure that would have paved the way for one huge bill that contained $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and a $2 trillion reduction in federal spending over a decade. Senate Republicans passed their own plan that punted on the issue of taxes and spending cuts, and called for a $150 billion increase in military spending and $175 billion more for border security over the next decade.

Rather than reconcile those issues now, Republicans essentially agreed to postpone decisions on major issues, like how much they should lower spending to offset the cost of their tax cuts and where to find those reductions.

On paper, the new Senate budget outline allows for $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, a seemingly modest amount. But that figure disguises an additional $3.8 trillion for extending the 2017 tax cuts that Senate Republicans also want to include in the bill, which they argue should not show up as a cost on the federal balance sheet.

The 2017 tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, so an extension must be included in their bill, but Republicans have said that they will steer around budget rules and declare the move cost-free. The real size of the tax cut envisioned in the Senate outline is therefore roughly $5.3 trillion over a decade, with $1.5 trillion available for new tax cuts like Trump's proposal to not tax tips. That is far larger than the $4.5 trillion House Republicans have given themselves.

That is just the beginning of the differences between the House and the Senate budget plans. With additional spending on defense and immigration, and minimal spending cuts, the Senate resolution could add roughly $5.7 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. It calls for a $5 trillion increase in the debt limit, compared with the $4 trillion increase in the House plan. And House Republicans are pursuing deep spending cuts aimed at keeping the cost of their overall package to $2.8 trillion.

Some Republicans in the House have said they could be unwilling to support a Senate resolution that does not call for more fiscal restraint.

"Let's be truthful about this; let's worry about our debt," said Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C. "If we're not going to worry about our debt, I don't know how that works."