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Senate approves $350 billion plan for Trump border, defense spending

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks with reporters after a vote on Capitol Hill on Feb. 12. MUST CREDIT: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
By Jacob Bogage Washington Post

Senate Republicans approved a plan in the wee hours Friday to spend $350 billion to pay for President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, border security crackdown and military investments.

The vote kicks off the budget reconciliation process, an arcane set of maneuvers that allow the GOP to get around Democratic filibusters. But it tees up a intensifying brawl with Republicans who control the House, which is pursuing its own legislation to tie all of Trump’s priorities into a single, massive package - or, as Trump has taken to calling it, a “big, beautiful bill.”

The bill, written by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), would let Republicans chalk up “early wins” at the start of Trump’s term, and it could pass by this spring. It includes $175 billion in new spending for Trump’s wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and expanding immigrant detention facilities, and $150 billion to bolster the military’s supply chains and missile stocks and improve air- and missile-defense systems.

The GOP is considering offsetting the new spending by green-lighting additional fossil fuel projects and cutting spending on social safety net programs. The Senate voted nearly along party lines, 52 to 48, to approve the legislation after almost 10 hours of votes on amendments, many of which Democrats offered to force Republicans to oppose measures that might seem politically sympathetic. Sen. Rand Paul (Kentucky), a leading GOP spending hawk, joined Democrats to oppose the underlying resolution’s final passage.

Under the Senate’s plan, lawmakers would take up a second reconciliation bill later this year to renew expiring portions of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. That law lowered rates for businesses and individuals of nearly all income levels but concentrated most of the benefits among corporations and the wealthy. The business tax cuts are permanent, but the individual portions expire at the end of 2025, meaning Americans would face a large tax hike without congressional action.

The House wants to try to wrap the tax legislation in with everything else. It’s expected to take up the issue next week.