Congressional Republicans Score Major Victory

It has been reported that Congressional Republicans on Tuesday scored a major legislative victory as the Senate adopted the first bicameral GOP budget agreement in a decade.

The GOP budget was agreed after a 51-48 vote and weeks of hard work by Republican leaders in the House and Senate, who presented the blueprint of the budget through a messy debate over defense spending that threatened to split their conferences.

The blueprint that was passed in the House last week will not require a signature from president Obama.

Passing a budget, which is always considered as a heavy lift, was particularly important for Senate Republicans who were looking forward to demonstrate their ability to govern in a difficult 2016 election cycle.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had given tough competition to Democrats for years over their failure of passing a budget.

McConnell said Tuesday's vote showed that his GOP majority is getting the Senate working again.

"No budget will ever be perfect, but this is a budget that sensibly addresses the concerns of many different members. It reflects honest compromise from many different members with many different priorities", said the Kentucky Republican.

The budget vote split the Senate's GOP presidential hopefuls, with Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rand Paul (Ky.) voting against the agreement and Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Lindsey Graham (S. C.) voting in favor.

Democrats, who voted in unison against the budget in both chambers of Congress, said Republicans would come to regret calling for trillions of dollars in cuts to federal spending.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N. Y.) said in a statement that they know that there is only one bit of good news. He further said when his colleagues are forced to actually put real numbers to budget numbers in the appropriations process they won't be able to do it.