WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. Senate on Thursday advanced its 2018 budget resolution, a key step for its top agenda item, a tax overhaul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a narrow 51-49 vote, as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined every Senate Democrat to vote against the bill. The budget, which had long been stalled, would protect a $1.5 trillion tax cut from a Democratic filibuster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republicans, heading into midterm elections, crave a legislative win after the collapse of their healthcare reform efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is the last, best chance we will have to cut taxes,\u201d said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and a member of the Budget Committee. Failing to do so, \u201cwill be the end of us as a party, because if you\u2019re a Republican and you don\u2019t want to simplify the tax code and cut taxes, what good are you to anybody?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Early Friday morning, President Donald Trump tweeted praise of the Senate’s vote, writing, “Great news on the 2018 budget @SenateMajLdr McConnell – first step toward delivering MASSIVE tax cuts for the American people!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though the budget is meant to serve as a blueprint for spending, it was widely acknowledged as a vehicle for easier passage of tax reform, based on parliamentary procedure. <\/font>GOP leaders are said to be hoping the House can simply pass the Senate bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIts such a joke,\u201d Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, a Budget Committee member and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair, told reporters Thursday. \u201cThis is the greatest hoax cast upon the American people, that the budget process even exists. The only thing that matters is preparation for tax reform.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Defense hawks hope spending for 2018 is likely to to be sorted out in an 11th hour bipartisan budget deal in December that eases budget caps for defense and non defense \u2014 and not a stopgap measure to continue spending at the prior year\u2019s level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the Senate floor Thursday, Senate Armed Services Committee Chair John McCain, R-Ariz., said a broader deal is \u201curgent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The process through which the Senate approved the budget, which includes a long series of votes on amendments, known as a vote-a-rama, provided some drama between defense hawks (McCain) and fiscal hawks (Paul).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Senate overwhelmingly rejected two amendments from Paul that would have included spending cuts. Paul was opposed to the budget resolution because it allocates $43 billion for the wartime overseas contingency operations fund, which is exempt from caps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McCain, a holdout on the budget over increased defense spending, said he ultimately voted with fellow Republicans to advance tax reform. Still, he objected to the budget because it hews to the caps, calling for defense spending at $54 billion less than the president\u2019s request and $86 billion less than the Senate-passed defense policy bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McCain laid at Congress\u2019 feet recent military mishaps in which dozens of troops were hurt or killed to argue the military is in a readiness crisis caused by budget caps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhenever there is cuts in defense spending, the first thing that goes is the easy ones, the training, the readiness, the spare parts, the flying hours. Cutting a major weapons system or program is extremely difficult,\u201d McCain said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo now we have \u2026 men and women serving in the military that we are responsible, at least partially, for their death and injury. Why? Because they\u2019re not able to be trained.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Republicans, heading into midterm elections, crave a legislative win after the collapse of their healthcare reform efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":37980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"4":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"5":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"6":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"7":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"}}},"categories":[8,160,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3446],"class_list":["post-59518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress","category-daily-news-roundup","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"5BKNCR7TGZBMRKAD2D3KI2QL3U","arc_canonical_url":"\/congress\/2017\/10\/20\/us-senate-passes-2018-budget-to-tee-up-tax-reform\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n