Senate GOP adopts budget blueprint to advance Trump agenda as spending fight consumes Capitol Hill
Source: CNN Politics
Updated 2:58 AM EDT, Sat April 5, 2025
CNN — Senate GOP leaders took a key step toward advancing President Donald Trump’s multi-trillion-dollar agenda in Congress — simultaneously setting off an intraparty war over how to pay for it. Republicans in Washington are moving urgently to deliver the White House a political win on taxes and border security amid an escalating trade war. But the road ahead will be difficult for Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who have slim majorities in their chambers and will need to settle complex party fights that are already dividing the GOP’s hard-right fiscal hawks and its more establishment wing.
In the early hours of Saturday after an overnight work session, the Senate took a final vote to adopt a new budget blueprint that will allow top Republicans to begin drafting Trump’s first big legislative package. GOP Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine were the only Republicans to join Democrats in opposing the resolution. During the more than six-hour voting session known as a “vote-a-rama,” Democrats – locked out of power in Washington and limited in their ability to counter the GOP agenda – forced votes to hammer Republicans on an array of political weak spots.
Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer zeroed in on growing angst and anxiety over Trump’s economic policy, offering an amendment targeting the president’s sweeping tariffs. “President Trump’s tariff tax is one of the dumbest things he has ever done as president and that’s saying something,” he said. His amendment did not receive enough support for adoption.
Among Democrats’ proposed amendments was one aimed at supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression and another combatting Department of Government Efficiency changes at the Social Security Administration. The party insisted Republicans are pushing for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and argued the blueprint’s proposed spending cuts would impose major slashes to public benefit programs like Medicaid.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/04/politics/senate-budget-resolution-vote-trump-agenda/index.html