This week, the House and Senate budget committees marked up and advanced competing budget resolutions for fiscal year (FY) 2025. The FY 2025 budget resolution represents the first step in the budget reconciliation process, an expedited legislative process that allows for party-line consideration of certain tax, spending, and debt limit legislation. Its primary advantage is that it is not subject to the Senate filibuster and therefore requires only a simple majority vote to pass. This would allow Republicans to advance key portions of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda, including an extension of tax provisions originally included in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (P.L. 115-97), along with additional funding for border security and immigration enforcement, among other priorities.
On Feb. 12 and 13, the Senate Budget Committee marked up and voted 11-10 to advance their budget resolution (PDF), setting top-line spending instructions for Senate committees to utilize as part of the reconciliation process. Consistent with Senate leadership’s preferred reconciliation strategy, this budget resolution would abide by a two-bill approach, with the first package focusing on border security, defense, and energy policy. Under this approach, Senate Republicans would address tax policies in a second bill to be considered later this year. The budget resolution instructs the Senate Finance and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committees to each identify $1 billion in net savings to offset non-health care policy priorities.
The House Budget Committee on Feb. 13 marked up and voted 21-16 to advance their competing budget resolution (PDF), which would address all components of Trump’s domestic policy priorities in a single, comprehensive reconciliation package. The budget resolution calls to increase the debt ceiling by $4 trillion and allows for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, while allocating an additional $200 billion for border and defense spending. To partially finance these policies, the resolution instructs other committees to identify no less than $1.5 trillion in cuts over ten years, instructing the House Energy and Commerce Committee to identify no less than $880 billion in net savings. The committee has jurisdiction over the Medicaid program, which has been identified as a potential source of savings.
Although the budget reconciliation process requires the House and Senate to pass identical budget resolutions, both chambers have indicated their intention to advance their respective budget resolutions throughout February.