Congress moves forward with Trump's budget bill

Congress has just taken a step toward passing a budget bill for President Donald Trump. 

Fox News reports that the legislation made it past the House Budget Committee on Thursday.

This, of course, is a big step forward, as the bill can not make it to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives without getting past this committee.

The committee vote, according to Fox News, was along party lines. The final tally was 21 to 16.

The details of the bill

The legislation is ambitious, to say the least.

Fox reports:

The 45-page resolution directs various House committees to find a sum of at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, with $300 billion in new spending allocated toward the border, national defense, and the judiciary. It also directs $4 trillion toward raising the debt limit, and it includes $4.5 trillion to extend Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and other tax provisions pushed by the president for the next 10 years.

In other words, the bill looks to further several of the big items on President Trump's agenda.

Both Republicans in the House and the Senate are looking to pass similar legislation, but they are taking two different approaches. Whereas the House is trying to get everything done in one big bill, the Senate is going for two bills, separating border and defense funding from tax cuts.

Senate Republicans passed a border and defense spending bill on Wednesday.

Looking forward

The bill did not pass through the committee unscathed. There was much debate, and negotiations continued right up until the final moment.

The question now is whether the bill will make it through both chambers of Congress. As long as Republicans stick together, then it should.

This is because Congressional Republicans are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to get the job done. Normally, a bill needs the support of two-thirds of the Senate to make it through the upper chamber. But, under the reconciliation procedure, all that is needed is a simple majority of 51.

Considering that Republicans have a 53 to 47 lead in the Senate, this means that the bill should make it through - provided that Senate Republicans stick together. We'll have to see how this plays out in the coming weeks.

Now that the bill has made it through the House Budget Committee, it is expected that U.S. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will put it before the entire House by the end of the month.