Painful votes that went nowhere
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/us/politics/senate-budget.html
Senate Approves G.O.P. Budget Plan After Overnight Vote-a-Thon
The supposed "painful" parts:
Democrats forced Republicans to weigh in on amendments protesting Mr. Trump’s escalating global trade war, Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, the G.O.P.’s proposed cuts to Medicaid and the recent use of Signal by national security officials in the Trump administration to discuss a sensitive military operation.
On a 53-to-46 party-line vote, the Senate rejected a proposal offered by Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, to prohibit the use of “any commercial messaging application” to transmit information revealing the timing, sequencing or weapons to be used in impending military operations.
In another party-line vote, Republicans opposed en masse an amendment by Mr. Schumer to rescind Mr. Trump’s tariffs if they increased the cost of Americans’ groceries.
They also defeated an amendment to prevent any disruptions in continuing security assistance to Ukraine, though two Republicans — Ms. Collins and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — joined Democrats to support it.
Three Republicans — Ms. Collins, Ms. Murkowski and Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska — voted with Democrats to reverse Musk-imposed cuts to the Social Security Administration. The vote still failed, 49 to 50.
Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski, along with Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, broke with their party to support a bipartisan amendment from Mr. Hawley and Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, to eliminate the Medicaid cuts envisioned in the plan. The measure, which failed 49 to 50, would have deleted an instruction to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, to find $880 billion in spending reductions.
