February 7, 2025: Breaking down the Senate’s budget blueprint
Welcome to Unrig the Rules! For our new subscribers: I publish this newsletter on an ad hoc basis to share quick updates and analysis regarding what’s happening on Capitol Hill.
Our last few updates have focused on President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s ongoing campaign to illegally reshape the federal government to suit their interests, with catastrophic results for the American people. Today, we’re switching gears to check in on congressional Republicans’ attempts to advance the President’s legislative agenda.
To be clear: the Trump/Musk assault on services families depend on continues, and it continues to hurt Americans. The administration continues to impound—that is, illegally withhold—funding Congress allocated for specific programs. Below are reports about impacts impoundment has had just this week:
Fifty-plus Head Start and Early Head Start providers have not been paid, forcing layoffs and risking additional job losses and preschool closures in 24 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
The Washington State Department of Transportation is waiting on delayed federal funding for bridge repairs and road safety projects. If the administration continues to block Washington’s funds, hundreds of layoffs could happen within days.
The Appalachian Center for Independent Living, a West Virginia nonprofit assisting people with disabilities, laid off 60 percent of its staff after the Trump administration cut off its funding, forcing the Center to cut back the services it provides. One patient living with stage five renal disease, for example, lost transportation to her thrice-weekly dialysis treatments.
We’ll continue to keep you updated on this critical topic. If you’d like to read more background on impoundment and recent events, check out our several updates from the past month here. Now, back to what’s happening in Congress.
Refresher on reconciliation
Reminder: reconciliation is the process Republicans plan to use to enact their agenda without Democratic support. To learn more, check out The Basics of Budget Reconciliation. Republicans hope to use this process to renew and expand corporate-friendly tax policies from the first Trump Administration set to expire later this year, as well as greenlight hundreds of billions of dollars for the military and deportations.
All of that will be super expensive, and while most Republicans want to pair these new funds with cuts to other federal programs, they’re divided on 1) how deep to make those cuts, and 2) whether to do all this in one bill or two—more on that here.
What happened today
The Senate released a budget blueprint, which directs specific House and Senate committees to write parts of the reconciliation bill and tells each of those committees how much to change government spending or revenue.
This is important because in telling specific committees to write parts of the bill, the budget resolution defines the universe of topics the bill can possibly cover. The final bill is only going to include policies that fall under those committees’ jurisdiction. Here’s a good summary of every congressional committee’s jurisdiction. Note that House and Senate committees—very confusingly—do not mirror one another.
Breaking down the Senate’s budget
The Senate’s budget blueprint tells committees to come up with at most $521 billion in new spending and at least $4 billion in cuts between Fiscal Years 2025-2034. Here’s a table breaking down where they want committees to spend money, and where they want committees to cut it. I’ll analyze these numbers a bit below.
What do these numbers mean for services people depend on?
While the document doesn’t tell committees how to achieve their prescribed spending targets, Republicans have offered ample clues as to what’s coming (see our January 21 update, What We Can Learn from House Republicans’ Reconciliation Menu).
Below are some key takeaways from a quick review of the resolution. Note that because this document came out just a couple hours ago, this list is certainly not exhaustive.
Republicans propose taking health insurance away from families. The budget directs the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Finance Committee to make at least $1 billion in cuts. These committees oversee Medicaid, the health insurer for more than 70 million Americans.
GOP leaders have proposed creating work requirements for people on Medicaid and “per capita caps” to save money. Data shows that Medicaid work requirements reduce participation in the program considerably—including among people who meet the requirements but are confused by mandated reporting. Reports also indicate that people who lose coverage due to work requirements suffer long-term consequences: data from Arkansas shows that half struggle to pay off medical debt and nearly two-thirds delay taking medications due to their high cost. On top of that, there’s ample data showing that “work requirements” do little to actually promote employment.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a great explainer on per capita caps. Briefly, these would limit how much money the federal government gives each state for Medicaid, based on a fixed amount per person. Since this cap rises more slowly than actual health care costs, states would be forced to kick people off the program and/or cover fewer health care services. The Congressional Budget Office found that, ultimately, this could force more families into bankruptcy and medical debt.
Republicans propose taking food assistance away from families. The agriculture committees' inclusion indicates that Republicans could target the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), often called “food stamps”—a program that feeds more than 40 million Americans, and another that’s long been a GOP target for work requirements. Data shows that work requirements reduce SNAP participation by more than half, that unhoused adults are disproportionately barred from the program, and that work requirements are rooted in racist tropes and myths that disproportionately harm Black families.
The Senate is proposing a reconciliation bill that will not include extending the corporate-friendly Trump tax policies of his first term. If congressional Republicans take this path, they’ll need to do a second reconciliation bill before the end of the year to avoid those tax provisions expiring. This could cost as much as $5.5 trillion—meaning, the GOP will likely look to make even more draconian cuts.
Cuts could be way more severe than what’s in this document. Committees have leeway to cut more, thereby worsening the impacts this bill has on families.
What happens next?
Senate Republicans aim to consider their budget in committee on Wednesday, and each committee named in the budget has been told to submit their recommendations—that is, what specifically they want to spend on or cut, and by exactly how much—to their respective budget committees by March 7.
At the same time, House Republicans say they’ll also put out a budget resolution in the coming days—but one that sets up one big reconciliation package that does include Trump’s tax agenda. Which approach will prevail—if either does—remains to be seen.
To get our quick analysis as events unfold on Capitol Hill, sign up for future Unrig the Rules updates here! If you’d like a live update for your group or coalition, reach out to catherine@progressivecaucuscenter.org. Thanks!