Senate Republicans are looking to quickly to pass a budget so they can move directly to tax reform, and hope to mark up a budget resolution next week and then pass the resolution the week after that, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said Wednesday.
“I really hope we get this done this year before the end of the year, get this signed into law,” he said. “We’re going to have a budget mark-up next week, and so if a budget comes out of committee, that’ll be a big important milestone.”
“I think within probably the following week week we’ll be on the Senate floor with a budget,” he added.
Passing a budget is an urgent necessity for the Republicans’ efforts to enact tax reform this year. Approving the budget would unlock the special procedure of reconciliation, which would allow the GOP to advance and pass tax legislation with only 51 votes in the Senate, bypassing a Democratic filibuster.
Toomey, a member of the Budget Committee who has cut a deal to allow a major supply-side tax reform to proceed through reconciliation, told reporters that the panel aims to mark up a budget document next week, and “probably the next week we’ll be on the Senate floor,” he said. He hopes to enact tax reform this year.
Republican tax-writers have said that they will unveil tax reform legislation only after the budget resolution is approved.
One major question is whether Republicans will insist on including plans for major reforms to entitlement programs and other deficit-reduction measures in the budget document. An alternative would be to pass a “shell” budget that steered clear of politically difficult questions about major reforms, and just unlocked the reconciliation procedure.
Toomey said that he wasn’t sure which direction the panel would take.
The House Budget Committee has already approved a budget document. But the full House has not yet been able to pass it, amid disagreement over fiscal policy and the terms of the eventual tax bill.
“We’re going to have tax reform and this is the vehicle for it,” committee chairwoman Diane Black said Tuesday.
Black said that it was likely that the two chambers would have to go to conference after approving their own budget resolutions, necessitating a second vote to proceed on tax reform.
