WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans successfully approved a procedure allowing the party to utilize an alternative budgeting standard that minimizes the financial impact President Donald Trump’s tax package will have on the national deficit.
Lawmakers narrowly passed a motion Monday morning authorizing Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to use what is known as the “current policy baseline” to estimate the cost of the $4.5 trillion tax package making its way through Congress. Senators split across party lines to pass the measure in a 53-47 vote.
The vote opens the door for Republicans to use a novel scoring system that would omit the cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts from the overall budget projection — making the total price of the package seem lower than other assessments.
Shortly after the Senate began debate on the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the massive reconciliation bill containing the top priorities for Trump’s agenda, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., raised a point of order to greenlight the current policy baseline method.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., immediately objected, requiring a vote to proceed.
Democrats previously pushed for a bipartisan meeting with the Senate parliamentarian, a nonpartisan adviser to the upper chamber, to determine whether the current policy baseline could be used to calculate the cost of the tax package. However, that request was denied — prompting Democrats to debate the matter on the Senate floor before the up-and-down vote at the start of the vote-a-rama.
“There is no need to have a parliamentarian meeting with respect to the current policy baseline because Section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act gives Senator Graham — as Chairman of the Budget Committee — the authority to set the baseline,” a spokesperson for the Senate Budget Committee said in a statement. “There is nothing to debate and we consider this matter settled.”
What is current policy baseline — and why is it being debated?
Official budget projections often utilize what is known as “current law baseline,” which predicts the cost of policies based on the assumption that all current laws will stay in place exactly as they are written — including scheduled expirations.
At the centerpiece of the bill is a provision to extend $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that are scheduled to expire at the end of this year that were initially passed under Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017.
The current law baseline takes that expiration date into account when it comes to estimating how much the full reconciliation package would cost. The latest projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predict the full bill would add nearly $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade — much higher than the $508 billion deficit decrease predicted under the “current policy baseline.”
Proponents of the current policy baseline say it offers a more realistic picture of how the tax cuts will affect the national deficit, but critics argue it simply ignores increases to the deficit that will be added anyway.
Republicans boast new power — but others warn it could set bad precedent
As the chairman of the Budget Committee, Graham has long advocated using the alternative scoring, arguing it is within his authority to set the baseline that way.
Throughout the bill drafting process, Graham operated under the assumption that the Senate would utilize the untried method — even before the Senate parliamentarian could approve its usage.
Budget Committee staff pointed to congressional procedures approved by the then-Democratic majority in 2022 that established the “Budget Committee, through its Chair, makes the call on questions of numbers. The Parliamentarian makes the call on questions of law.”
That rule, Graham argues, gives him the power to utilize the system with or without the parliamentarian’s permission.
However, some Senate Republicans expressed concerns with the untried scoring system, arguing it could set a dangerous precedent for future legislation.
At one point, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., was overheard arguing with Graham on the Senate floor about his proposed approach, according to Roll Call.
“It is changing the Senate,” Cassidy told Graham.
“I’m the Budget chairman,” Graham replied. “I’m going to call it the way I want to.”
Democrats pushed back against the method, accusing their Republican colleagues of attempting to mask the true cost of the legislation.
“The Senate Republican budget policy: Tax breaks for billionaires are FREE! But health care costs money, so CUT!” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in a post on X. “It’s magic math — and cruel hypocrisy.”
What’s next?
The approval to use the current policy baseline puts the Senate reconciliation bill on the fast-track to passage.
The vote was the first proposal approved in the amendment process, also known as vote-a-rama, which is expected to drag on into the late hours of Monday. Once amendments are through, the Senate will vote on final passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
After that, the bill heads to the House for consideration, where it faces an uphill battle for passage. Republican leaders are pushing to get the bill passed and to Trump’s desk for his signature by the Fourth of July — giving lawmakers just four days to overcome major policy differences.