The Senate was in session all night Friday and into Saturday morning but eventually passed its budget blueprint with an extension of Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts and steep cuts in some domestic programs.
The vote was possible after weeks of wrangling between Republicans in the House and Senate over basic math. Does two plus two really equal four, or does it equal whatever Republicans say it does?
It doesn't matter. Both parties play games with math, depending on who's in power. The solution Republicans came up with is novel and unusual. They say that because the expiring tax cuts have been in place since 2017, extending the $4 trillion in cuts shouldn’t be recorded as costing anything because the GOP says so.
Yes, really. There are two hurdles that Republicans would ordinarily have to leap to make this math magic work: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scores the budget bill and tells us if the numbers add up. Then, the Senate Parliamentarian would confirm that the CBO score matches what the Republicans claim in their bill. If the Parliamentarian gives a thumbs down, the bill becomes much harder to pass.
The CBO score is irrelevant to the politics involved. But the Senate Parliamentarian can cause real trouble. That's why Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced earlier this week that it was he and he alone who has the authority to determine baseline numbers for spending and revenue.
Democrats will scream bloody murder, but it will do them no good. Republicans have the votes. And on early Saturday morning, they muscled the tax cut and spending outline through by a vote of 51-48.
“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,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).
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 Mr. Trump’s escalating global trade war, Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, the G.O.P.’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,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said on 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?”
There's a Grand Canyon-like chasm between the House and Senate versions of the bill. The House has yet to accept the Senate's magic math solution to how to count the tax cuts against the budget deficit. That's going to be a tough sell for Speaker Mike Johnson, who has a razor-thin majority to deal with.
The Associated Press reports that, "A new estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation projects the tax breaks will add $5.5 trillion over the next decade when including interest, and $4.6 trillion not including interest."
“Something’s fishy,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who was one of two Republican senators to vote against the bill. He questioned his colleague's magical math solution to the deficit problem.
He appears to be the only GOP senator who did.
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