Senate Republicans voted in the early hours of Thursday morning to reject an amendment offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders that aimed to cut US prescription drug prices in half by mandating that Americans pay no more for medications than people in Canada and other wealthy nations.
Trump's proposed military budget would mean a spectacular jump; it would be 42% above this year's budget and two-thirds bigger than Joe Biden's last Pentagon budget.
The idea has reportedly gained support from Defence Secretary John Healey and has been discussed in private ministerial meetings in recent weeks, as ministers search for ways to bridge a widening fiscal gap without breaking Labour's tax and borrowing pledges.
Public debt stands at more than $39 trillion, with the interest expense on that borrowing now exceeding $1 trillion a year, highlighting the urgent need for a sustainable fiscal path.
The tax provides more than $23 billion per year in revenue for federal highway and public transit programs. The federal gas tax has been in place, in one way or another, since 1919 and was last raised in 1993.
"My constituents are saving thousands of dollars and they know it. Republicans can and should take credit because the alternative would've been massive tax hikes under the Democrats had they won the 2024 election."
The interchamber tensions between Democrats are becoming a regular feature of funding fights in the second Trump term. Lawmakers, strategists and voters alike exploded in anger last March when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and a handful of colleagues allowed a spending package to move forward amid the Elon Musk-led DOGE assault on federal agencies. In November, tempers again flared when a handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to end a record 43-day shutdown.
These new restrictions-which can be found throughout the appropriations bill for the Department of Education and other sections of the 11-part funding package that was signed into law last week-are part of what policy experts describe as a bipartisan attempt to rebuke the Trump administration's budget proposal and restore Congress's power of the purse. Historically, the language of these budget bills has largely stayed the same, serving as little more than a template into which lawmakers plug that year's dollar amounts and policy riders.
