Senate passes GOP budget

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate voted 51-48 Tuesday to approve a fiscal blueprint that finalizes the first joint GOP congressional budget in nearly a decade.

The ten-year plan achieves balance with steep cuts in domestic spending while protecting defense spending and raising no new taxes. It also calls for the full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans will work toward again later this year.

"It's a budget that aims to make government more efficient, more effective, and more accountable to the middle class," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Democrats said the Republican budget would give tax breaks to the wealthy while stripping millions of Americans of health insurance, cutting federal tuition grants for college students, and slashing Medicaid and food stamp programs for the poor.

"This is an absolute disaster for the working families of this country," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

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The three announced GOP presidential candidates in the Senate were split on the budget resolution, with Marco Rubio of Florida voting to approve it and Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky voting against it.

The budget resolution is non-binding, but passage triggers special rules that will provide a protected legislative pathway to bring a bill to the floor to repeal President Obama's health care law.

The "reconciliation" process, as it is known, allows for legislation that cannot be filibustered in the Senate, which means the Republicans have their best chance since the law's enactment to get a such a bill to Obama's desk.

House Republicans have successfully voted dozens of times to repeal all or part of the law, but those measures always faltered in a Democratic-controlled Senate. With the GOP in full control of Congress, and with the assist of a reconciliation bill, there is a new front in the legislative battle over the law.

The president would veto any repeal measure that reaches his desk, so GOP efforts are still largely symbolic. However, the effort underscores just how deeply opposed the GOP remains to the health care law.

Republicans' health care agenda could still be upended by a Supreme Court decision coming this summer that could invalidate critical aspects of the law.

Top GOP lawmakers in both chambers are working on an alternative in that event, but there is no legislative consensus on how Republicans would cover the uninsured.

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