After challenging week, Congress approves GOP’s new budget resolution

Republicans in the House and Senate have had to navigate some challenging dynamics this past week, but both chambers were able to successfully pass a controversial new budget resolution – one that New Jersey Republicans claim will lead to lower taxes and greater fiscal responsibility, and that the state’s Democrats say will cause massive cuts to critical programs.

New Jersey’s congressional delegation voted along party lines, but with an important asterisk: Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden), hospitalized in New Jersey after a medical event over the weekend, wasn’t able to vote. Norcross said in a statement that he “would vote ‘no’ a thousand times” against the GOP’s “draconian” bill, but his absence meant that Republicans were able to eke out a 216-215 victory on a key procedural step yesterday leading up to the budget vote. (The resolution itself passed 216-214 today.)

The resolution, a compromise between two competing proposals passed earlier this year by the House and Senate, does not itself implement any policy or funding changes. But it lays the groundwork for a later reconciliation bill, which Republicans hope to use to enact the core of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, and directs Congress to make sweeping spending cuts.

The budget provision that has for months drawn the most attention, and blowback from Democrats, is the resolution’s directive that the House Energy & Commerce Committee cut $880 billion in spending. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), the top Democrat on that committee, has said there’s no way those cuts can be made under his committee’s jurisdiction without digging deep into Medicaid, the massive federal health program for low-income Americans.

“The [Congressional Budget Office] got back to us and said that most, if not all, of that has to come from Medicaid cuts,” Pallone said yesterday during a floor debate on the bill. “So please, admit that you are voting today on Medicaid cuts. Do not deny it… A vote for this by the Republicans today is a vote to cut people’s health care, to reduce their services, to kick people out of nursing homes, to make hospitals unavailable.”

Democrats also hammered home two other core points about the resolution: the tax cuts that could eventually result from it, they said, would be tilted in favor of the already-wealthy, and the federal deficit that Republicans frequently harp on would likely stand to grow, not shrink.

“Though I know my colleagues across the aisle are very concerned with the federal debt, this budget adds more than $5 trillion to the deficit,” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) said. “This is a rip-off for working families.”

Some Republicans also had issues with the budget, ones that initially prevented House leadership from bringing it up from a vote last night and delayed the vote until today. But the bill’s GOP critics attacked it from the right, not the left, arguing that the resolution’s language didn’t mandate steep enough spending cuts and deficit reductions.

None of New Jersey’s three House Republicans were among the holdouts, most of whom eventually caved this morning. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) was among the swing votes when Republicans passed their original budget resolution in February because of the possibility of Medicaid cuts, but he ended up voting with his party both then and today, arguing that nowhere in the resolution itself is Medicaid mentioned.

“Anyone who tells you this resolution includes cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security is not telling you the truth,” he said in a statement this morning. “I have been in constant communication with House leadership and the Speaker, making it clear that any bill that threatens these critical programs will not get my support.”

Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), whose competitive district will be key to Republican chances of holding the House majority in 2026, similarly voted for the bill, telling the New Jersey Globe that “it’s important that we work hard to make sure that we root out waste, fraud, and abuse” – a common refrain for Republicans in talking about Medicaid and other programs.

Though the House commanded attention this week (as it often does), the resolution originated in the Senate, which passed it after a marathon voting session late last Friday. Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim both joined the entire Democratic caucus in opposing it; the two senators also voted for a number of Democratic-led amendments to the resolution beforehand to safeguard Medicaid, Ukraine assistance, Social Security, and more.

Kim himself offered one such amendment, one aimed at protecting caregivers from potential Medicaid cuts, which Kim said was personal to him as he watches his aging father struggle. It, like all Democratic amendments that night, failed to pass, albeit by a close 49-50 margin.

“I’ll be honest with you, it was hard leaving [my father’s] side to drive straight here to the Capitol tonight for votes that could very well determine if aging seniors like my father will get the care that they need,” Kim said on the Senate floor.

Now that both chambers have passed the resolution, negotiations on what the actual reconciliation bill will include can properly begin. With Freedom Caucus Republicans on one side advocating for deep spending cuts, and Republicans like Van Drew on the other saying they won’t vote for anything that slashes Medicaid, those negotiations will be tricky ones.

That, though, has been made a problem for another time; the House has embarked on a more than two-week recess, and the Senate will soon join them, not to return until April 28.