New Senate GOP Budget Would Pave The Way For Tax System Overhaul

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans unveiled a budget plan Friday that lays the groundwork for overhauling the nation's tax system, the top legislative priority for President Donald Trump and the GOP.

House and Senate passage of the budget blueprint is required in order to allow Republicans to pass follow-on tax legislation later this year. The ambitious tax plan would lower rates for businesses and individuals. Trump described it Friday as a "giant, beautiful, massive, the biggest ever in our country, tax cut."

The Senate Budget Committee release on Friday comes in advance of a committee vote next week. In the House, a companion measure is headed for a floor vote next week as well.

The new budget plan permits the upcoming tax measure to add $1.5 trillion over the coming decade to the $20 trillion national debt.

The two-step process is the only way, under Washington's byzantine rules, for the tax package to pass through the Senate without fear of Democrats blocking it with a filibuster. Republicans used the same process earlier this year in failed attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Despite those failures they're trying the same process on taxes, with the budget laying the groundwork to push through a bill in the Senate with only GOP votes and no Democratic participation.

"This budget is especially important because it will allow us to get to work on our pro-growth, pro-family, pro-jobs tax reform plan," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a statement. "Without it, Democrats will continue to play partisan politics and obstruct our efforts to get our economy flourishing and growing at its full potential."

More broadly, the Senate plan promises a balanced budget over the coming decade, but it relies on rosy projections of economic growth and spending cuts that Republicans have no plans to deliver to do so. It keeps Pentagon spending mostly frozen at current levels, rather than the almost $90 billion increase demanded by GOP military hawks.