Discussion Thread: US Senate Debates and Considers the Republican Budget Resolution on April 4th, 2025

[u/PoliticsModeratorBot]

News and Analysis

• CBS: Senate Republicans unveil budget resolution key to unlocking Trump agenda (Published two days ago)

• NBC: Senate Republicans vote to advance a massive budget blueprint for Trump's agenda | The Senate voted 52-48 to begin debate on a multitrillion-dollar plan that would cut taxes, boost spending for immigration enforcement and the military and raise the debt limit. (Published yesterday)

• NBC: GOP concerns about tax cut strategy and Medicaid loom over Senate budget

• AP: Republicans moving ahead with Trump’s ‘big’ bill of tax breaks and spending cuts amid tariff uproar

• ABC: Video: Senate Republicans set to push Trump agenda forward with vote-a-rama

• Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: Senate Budget Could Enable Unprecedented Deficit Increase

Live Updates

Relevant text-based, live update pages are being maintained by the following outlets: NBC, and Politico (soft paywall).

Where to Watch

• PBS NewsHour via YouTube: Senate convenes as Republicans push for Trump’s budget bill of tax and spending cuts

• C-SPAN: U.S. Senate, 2025-04-04 | The Senate is considering a revised version of the 2025 House Republicans' budget resolution.

[u/SUNTAN_1]

The way he talks about tariffs as if they are an infinite money glitch --- "We are gonna charge THEM using these tariffs!" and is so consistent with that messaging as if he almost believes it, is almost just as psycho as "We're building a wall, and Mexico is gonna pay for it!"

Note that the "Mexico is gonna pay for it!" part was a distraction, designed to obfuscate confuse and bamboozle --- because his REAL goal was to be able to get Congress to cough up taxpayer funding for a 300 billion dollar construction project where HE would get to hand-pick and choose all the contractors and subcontractors.

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And now, tariffs. Let's simplify it, with washing machines.

(a) Five million Americans want to buy a washing machine for cleaning their clothes. They could "buy American" for $1200, or buy one imported from China for $600. EVERYONE buys the $600 washing machine.

(b) Trump announces 50 percent tariff on washing machines.

(c) HOME DEPOT, LOWES or whoever sells washing machines, keeps buying washing machines from China, but now sells them for $900 --- still cheaper than an American-made washing machine.

(d) The American Consumer ends up paying the higher price.

[u/sirbissel → u/SUNTAN_1]

Or say there's the Chinese washing machine for $600, and the American one is for $750, tariffs hit, the Chinese machine is pushed up to $900 - so the American one decides they can slightly undercut the Chinese model but make a better profit and start selling them for $850.

[u/catjuggler → u/sirbissel]

What will happen a lot of the time (and with pretty much everything I sell in my ecommerce business) is the China COGS are $3->$4, the US COGS don't exist but let's pretend they're $6, so now everything just costs a dollar more and nothing moves locations. The only way for a tariff to cause a move in manufacturing is if the tariff makes the American built cost less, and if it isn't high ENOUGH to do that, it won't do anything but raise costs. Maybe there are some niches where the COGS are close, it's jobs americans actually want, and where using actual strategy could have cause tariffs or incentives to move manufacturing. Or wait, wasn't that what we were doing with electric car batteries and that got cancelled? Hm