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Budget Tag

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) became the fourth Republican senator to voice his support on a resolution to block President Donald Trump's border wall emergency declaration. Paul wrote at FoxNews.com that he "cannot support the use of emergency powers to get more funding." At a GOP event, Paul told the audience that he cannot "vote to give the president the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress."

On Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul succeeded in blocking a vote on the so-called Budget Deal (which we discussed thusly Wednesday). In so doing, the federal government shut down at 12:01 AM. An hour and a half later, the Senate invoked cloture, voted on the huge spending deal reached by both parties Wednesday evening, passing the bill with a vote of 71-28 (without bothering to debate it). Just before dawn it passed the House and heads to Trump for signature.

Wednesday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Schumer announced the Senate had come to a budget agreement. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the deal “a significant bipartisan step forward.” The agreement keeps the government open for six weeks and provides two years of massive spending hikes.

UPDATE: A cloture vote to end debate in the Senate on the funding bill passed by the House failed. So we're heading to "shutdown" unless there is a last minute deal reached. As a reminder of how Obama weaponized the 2013 shutdown, see my post Flashback to when Obama weaponized 2013 government shutdown. 60 votes were needed, and it fell 10 short. 5 Democrats voted Yes: Donnelly, Heitkamp, Manchin, Jones, McCaskill. 4 Republicans voted No: Graham, Paul, Lee, Flake.

It's unclear at this point whether there will be a short-term budget deal, or a government "shutdown." Despite the drama, a shutdown is not really a shut down. Essential services continue. It's more of a scale-back, and the government has a lot of discretion as to what gets scaled back. In a press conference today OMB Director Mick Mulvaney made the point that many agencies have reserve funds that can be used, but weren't used in the 2013 shutdown.

*UPDATE* Senate has also passed the stopgap spending bill, sending it to President Donald Trump's desk. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a two-week spending bill that will beat the deadline of a government shutdown.

Senate Republicans released its 2018 budget, which includes terms to allow the lawmakers to push through tax reform through budget reconciliation. This would protect them from a Democratic Filibuster. The plan gives tax writers until November 13 to submit tax reform plans.

Sens. Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Bob Corker (R-TN), two members with opposing views on fiscal policy, have announced "a path forward on tax reform" that "would allow for a tax reduction, as scored on a statistic basis, over a 10-year period." They hope to Senate Budget Committee will vote on said plan next week. The senators did not release any details about the plan, but new outlets have stated it will allow tax reductions up to $1.5 trillion. The Wall Street Journal reported that the "agreement would allow Republicans to lower tax rates while making fewer tough decisions on what tax breaks to eliminate to help pay for the cuts."