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Last night, the House of Representatives passed its version of the annual Budget Resolution by the slimmest of margins, 217-215. Quick highlights – 3-minute read:
1. The House-passed resolution, H.Con.Res. 14, would not become effective unless passed by the Senate. Even then, it is not a law; it is an internal congressional mechanism that does not require presidential signature.
2. The most important characteristic of a budget resolution is that it enables the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process. Because reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered, they require only 50 votes to pass the Senate (instead of the usual 60 to end debate and reach a final vote).
3. The Senate, passed its own budget resolution last week, S.Con.Res. 7. The Senate can now take up and pass the House resolution (which appears unlikely unless President Trump pushes for this result) or the two chambers can negotiate a compromise version. This afternoon, Senate Republicans indicated they may push for changes to the House resolution.
4. Once the budget reconciliation process is initiated by passage of a budget resolution, multiple House and Senate committees are instructed to report legislation complying with budgetary instructions in the resolution. Each committee’s work is then packaged into a single reconciliation bill for consideration by the full House and Senate, respectively—and then negotiated by the two chambers. Committees are likely to have about a month to meet their reconciliation instructions.
5. The House- and Senate-passed budget resolutions are different in scope. Both versions, would instruct House and Senate committees to report spending increases of $300 - $345 billion for defense, immigration enforcement, and border security (as requested by the Trump Administration).
6. The House version would also instruct House and Senate committees to report legislation cutting taxes by not more than $4 - $4.5 trillion (over 10 years); cutting mandatory (mostly entitlement) spending by at least $1.5 - $2.0 trillion (over 10 years); and increasing the public debt limit by $4 trillion.
7. Some media outlets have incorrectly reported that the final reconciliation bill must be deficit neutral; this is not correct. The reconciliation bill envisioned by the House budget resolution would increase the public debt by $3.4 - $4.0 trillion (including additional interest costs). In fact, the reason the United States now has an unsustainable level of public debt is that the reconciliation process—which was used during the 1980s and 1990s for deficit reduction—has been used since 2001 for tax cuts and spending increases that vastly increased the public debt.
8. The House Budget Committee’s framework obscures increasing debt by assuming “economic feedback effects of pro-growth policies,” i.e., the often-disputed claim that significantly higher revenues will result from cutting taxes.
9. The House-passed resolution assumes that the tax-writing committees will use their $4.0 - $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to extend expiring individual income and estate tax provisions of President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, although he has also called for reductions in the corporate tax and doing away with taxation of tip income and Social Security benefits; these cannot all be accommodated within the $4.0 - $4.5 trillion reconciliation cap. The tax-writing committees will make these choices if the resolution passes.
10. The House resolution’s spending cuts would be achieved as follows:
· The Energy & Commerce Committee would be instructed to reduce spending by at least $880 billion. Since President Trump has vowed repeatedly not to touch Medicare, that makes Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies the likely targets of the large cuts. (About 20 million Americans rely on ACA subsidies, and more than 72 million people rely on Medicaid, including children, seniors and individuals with disabilities.)
· The Education and Workforce Committee would be instructed to reduce spending by at least $330 billion; their jurisdiction includes school nutrition programs and student loan assistance.
· The Agriculture Committee would be instructed to reduce spending by at least $230 billion; their jurisdiction includes food stamps (the SNAP program) which assist 42 million Americans including 1 in 5 children.
· In addition, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform would be instructed to reduce spending by at least $50 billion, and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Committee by at least $10 billion.
11. Notably, this afternoon, Senate Republicans indicated they may push for changes to the House-passed budget resolution that enable making the 2017 tax cuts permanent. However, doing so would almost certainly cause deficits to increase over the long-term (beyond the 10-year budget window) which would violate the Senate’s Byrd Rule—allowing tax cut provisions to be dropped from the bill. For a full explanation of the Byrd Rule, see Trillions: A Primer on Federal Spending, Taxes, the U.S. Debt Ceiling, and Fiscal Law.
In order to continue receiving this weekly update, please sign up for a free subscription to Trillions: Week in Brief at: fedbudgetguy.substack.com/.
About the author: Charles S. Konigsberg, J.D., served as Assistant Director at the White House Office of Management and Budget for three successive Budget Directors; General Counsel at the U.S. Senate Finance Committee where he managed budget reconciliation; Minority Chief Counsel at the U.S. Senate Rules Committee; Staff Attorney at the U.S. Senate Budget Committee; and Staff Director of a national bipartisan budget task force.
He is author of the book, Trillions: A Primer on Federal Spending, Taxes, the U.S. Debt Ceiling, and Fiscal Law. (2024-25 edition currently available at LexisNexis.com; the 2025-26 edition will be published by Amazon.com after release of the Trump FY 2026 budget this spring.)
He is also Publisher of Appropriations.com; and GovBudget.com which tracks major federal developments, by subject area, each day.
Press interviews and Washington updates for your organization can be scheduled by calling: (202) 818-8578 or (301) 509-5688. Email comments and suggestions to: ckonigsberg@capitolpublicpolicy.com.