The Senate takes up the budgetary plan drawn up by the Republicans for Trump’s agenda

By Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro

Washington (AP) – The Senate plunged on Friday in a controversial debate on a budgetary plan essential to republican efforts to drop billions of dollars in tax discounts and stimulate border security and defense expenses thanks to what President Donald Trump calls “a major bill.”

The adoption of the plan would give the Republicans the chance to make months in muscle a bill on the reduction of taxes through the two chambers of the congress, even if the Democrats are unanimously opposed, just as they did during the first mandate of Trump.

Democrats intend to make the effort as painful as possible, starting with votes overnight on dozens of proposals that GOP senators will have to defend before the mid-term elections of next year, including on Trump’s pricing policies and administration efforts to reduce the federal government.

Republicans supervise their work as a noticeable tax increase for most American families. Unless the congress agrees, the individual and inheritance tax reductions that the Republicans adopted in 2017 will expire at the end of this year.

“Republicans fundamentally believe that Americans better know what to do with their money,” said the head of the majority of the Senate John Thune, Rs.d.

Democrats accused the Republicans of having laid the basis of the increase in deficits and reducing the main safety net programs such as Medicaid and nutritional assistance to help pay the tax reductions which, they say, benefit in a disproportionate to the rich.

“The investments that affect the future of America are suspended by a thread, and the Republicans are about to cut it,” said Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York.

The early debate on Friday was generally unilateral. The Democrats of the Senate take full advantage of 25 hours of their time of debate available, while the Republicans gave a large part of theirs in order to go to a voting frenzy all night called Voting-A-Rama. Once the legislators have exhausted their list of amendments and themselves, they will go to a final vote on the level itself, most likely Saturday morning.

The Senate should approve the measure. The room will also have to adopt it to unlock the process that Republicans can use to adopt legislation with a simple majority and avoid a democratic filibusier.

And this is only the beginning.

The development of a final bill will take weeks or even months, with the leaders of the GOP and Trump needing almost all the republican votes to obtain a package on the finish line. GOP leaders will confront concerns with tax hawks in deep red states and congress districts that want billions of dollars in expenditure discounts to help pay tax loss. And they will face dozens of legislators in swing districts and the worried states of what these cuts will mean for their voters and their chances of re -election.

It will be a delicate task without guarantee of success, in particular because the economic giations of Trump’s pricing policies are testing its ability to keep the United Republicans.

The Senate’s budgetary plan makes it possible to extend the individual tax and inheritance reductions in the context of a rating method which deals with them as not adding to future deficits, even if the Office Budget of the Congress projected that the extension would cost more than 3.8 dollars billions over 10 years, not to mention higher interest payments.

In addition to this, the budgetary plan requests the Senate financing committee to extend the deficits up to 1.5 more dollars more over this same period. This would give the place of senators to include some of Trump’s campaign promises, such as no tax on advice, social security services and overtime. Republicans also seek to increase the deduction of $ 10,000 for state and local taxes, which states legislators like New York, California and New Jersey say necessary to obtain their support.

The budgetary plan also allows the Senate to increase the debt ceiling up to 5 billions of dollars. The final approval of such an increase would allow the federal government to continue to finance its debts and assert other votes on the issue until the mid-term elections next year. Trump is wary of giving Democrats the opportunity to extract concessions on a debt ceiling vote.

The plan also indicates four Senate committees to find at least 1 billion dollars each in budgetary reduction. It is only a small fraction of more than 5 billions of dollars of potential tax relief. But leadership stresses that the instructions have deliberately established a low floor for spending reductions to offer maximum flexibility and that the committees will be looking for much more.

The committees are also authorized to continue up to $ 521 billion to stimulate border security, defense and coastal guard, although the chairman of the Lindsey Graham budget committee, RS.C., said the total final spending will be closer to $ 345 billion.

The House’s budgetary plan has planned $ 4.5 billions of tax alternatives over 10 years, although the amount of tax alternatives decreases if expenditure reduction does not reach $ 2 billions in savings.

The management of the GOP has encouraged members to simply obtain a budgetary plan on the finish line, saying that they have time to resolve difficult issues of tax alleviation and expense reductions to include.

Throughout the debate, democratic has focused on the framing of tax reductions as helping the richest to the detriment of average Americans. Senator Jeff Merkley, the main democrat of the Senate budget committee, spoke with a sign behind him who said “republican plan: families lose, billionaires win”.

“It’s a terrible plan,” said Merkley.

The extension of the 2017 breaks would reduce taxes for about three -quarters of households, but would increase them for around 10%. In 2027, around 45% of the advantages of all tax reductions would go to those who earn around $ 450,000 or more, according to the Urban-Brooking Tax Policy Center, which analyzes tax problems.

Senator John Barrasso, the Senator of GOP n ° 2, said that the voters had given the Republicans a mission and a mandate in November, and the budgetary plan of the Senate.

“He keeps our promises to obtain the border, rebuild our economy and restore peace by force,” said Barrasso.

Originally published: April 4, 2025 at 10:50 a.m.