Updated February 07, 2025 at 14:13 PM ET
Senate Republicans have leapfrogged their GOP House counterparts on a proposed budget resolution, as each chamber has competing visions of the best path forward to implement President Trump's legislative agenda.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, released the text of the Senate's budget resolution on Friday. The committee will begin work on the resolution next week.
"This budget resolution jumpstarts a process that will give President Trump's team the money they need to secure the border and deport criminals, and make America strong and more energy independent," Graham said in a statement on Friday.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters he'll be working through the weekend to deliver a GOP House budget blueprint early next week.
This comes after Johnson and other House GOP leaders met late into the evening on Thursday following a roughly five-hour meeting at the White House, which at times included Trump, in hopes of releasing a broad budget framework on Friday. Republicans have been under intense pressure to move quickly on a legislative agenda but have so far been unable to agree on how to get that done.
GOP House conference chair Rep. Lisa McClain told reporters Thursday that lawmakers discussed options to include in the budget plan: an extension of the federal borrowing limit, an extension of tax cuts passed in 2017 under the first Trump administration and campaign promises like addressing the U.S.-Mexico border and eliminating taxes on tips.
"Tick, tock, we're running out of time," McClain said. "We've talked about this for how long?"
Republicans hope to use an element of the budget process, known as reconciliation, to pass policy priorities without the threat of a filibuster from Democrats in the Senate. Reconciliation rules require lawmakers to pass a budget resolution that includes budget-related impacts to be addressed.
McClain and others who attended the White House meeting returned to the Capitol on Thursday night to finalize that top-line figure and framework.
McClain stopped short of describing many of those details, deferring to Johnson and Trump after the plans are finalized.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, however, told reporters at the White House on Thursday that House Republicans were also discussing ideas like eliminating taxes on senior Social Security and overtime pay, adjusting the state and local tax deduction, eliminating special tax breaks for "billionaire sports team owners," and closing the carried-interest tax deduction loophole and tax cuts for made-in-America products.
"They're talking about the budget and priorities from this administration — tax priorities," she said.
Even if GOP House leaders are able to reach an agreement among themselves, the path to passing the bill will not be easy. Republicans have an extremely narrow House majority, meaning they will need virtually every Republican on board in order to pass a plan.
And House Republicans now have to contend with the fact that the Senate released its proposal first.
Senate Republicans, including the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, Wyoming's John Barrasso, will be at Trump's Mar-a-Lago property in Florida on Friday night for a dinner with the president.
"We want to go with urgency," Barrasso said. "We want to make sure we get something done."
NPR's Barbara Sprunt and Elena Moore contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 NPR
