Defying Johnson, Graham and Senate G.O.P. Push Their Own Budget Plan

• Feb. 12, 2025Updated 11:42 a.m. ET

For days, Speaker Mike Johnson had called and texted Senator Lindsey Graham, imploring him to wait for the House to take the lead in the legislative drive to enact President Trump’s sweeping tax, budget and immigration agenda.

When the three men converged in New Orleans on Sunday in the president’s suite at the Super Bowl, Mr. Graham shut him down in person.

“I’m a huge fan, and nothing would please me more than one big, beautiful bill passing the House,” Mr. Graham recounted telling the speaker, a Louisiana Republican. But, he told Mr. Johnson, the Senate would press ahead with its own bill, adding, “We are living on borrowed time.”

Senate Republicans had waited for weeks for their House colleagues to resolve their differences and agree to a budget blueprint that could unlock the party’s push to pass a vast fiscal package with only a simple majority vote. But even as House Republicans put forth their own plan on Wednesday calling for $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, they remain divided over major issues, including how deeply to cut federal programs to pay for the bill.

Enter Mr. Graham, the fast-talking fourth-term Republican senator from South Carolina and the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

A loyal Trump ally who has long relished the opportunity to be in the middle of the action, Mr. Graham has made it clear in recent days that he has no intention of waiting for the House. Instead, Mr. Graham has advanced a budget plan that his committee is set to take up on Wednesday that would increase spending for the military and border security measures. He has promised that another bill extending the 2017 tax cuts will come later.