Some Democratic senators are weighing a budget tool called reconciliation. Democrats won both chambers on Nov. 3. Several of these senators are in line to chair committees. The tool would let them pass bills with no Republican votes. Then President Donald Trump must sign or veto them. "They'll send over things that are insane and I'll veto them," Trump told Fox News. After "a couple of months of vetoes," he said, "we'll work together."
"It's likely that we will do one," Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia told Bloomberg Government. "We can do something that will be attractive to him to sign or hurt him and his colleagues badly if he vetoes it." Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, likely the next party whip, said it was "too early to talk about that."
How the tool works
Most Senate bills need 60 votes. A reconciliation bill needs only a simple majority. First, both chambers must pass a budget plan. Overriding a veto takes two-thirds of each chamber. Democrats would need about a dozen GOP senators and some 35 House Republicans. Republicans used the tool twice in this Congress. Some want to use it once more before January.
What Democrats want
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the likely Finance chair, is looking at it to expand Medicare. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, wants to lower the Medicare age to 55 and cover all children. He calls that "an immediate first step toward Medicare for All." He also wants a $20 minimum wage. Bloomberg said Senate rules may not allow all of his list. In 2021 they kept a $15 minimum wage out of a Democratic budget bill.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts will chair the Banking Committee. She would "reverse the health care cuts the Republicans put in place." Democrats' plans would undo key parts of the 2025 Republican budget law. Senate GOP leader John Thune said his party's record created "more money in Americans' pockets." Republicans "will not stand idly by as the far-left, socialist wing of the Democrat Party attempts to unwind everything we've done," he wrote.
Bloomberg said a Democratic bill could top $1 trillion before new taxes. Senate Republican leaders wrote that Democrats' 2021 and 2022 budget bills "funded their left-wing wish list at the cost of supercharging inflation." Warren would start paying for her plans by reversing tax breaks for "millionaires and billionaires." Carolyn Bourdeaux, a former Democratic House member, runs a deficit group. She warned that unpaid costs could cancel out some of the relief.
The veto fight
Warren would first "team up with any Republican." She would start with Trump's promise to cap credit card rates. But "if Republicans won't join us, Democrats will move ahead without them," she said, and "dare him to veto it." Where the tool cannot help, she urged Democrats to "clear away Senate filibuster rules." Zach Moller of the centrist group Third Way asked if a public veto "is a messaging win worth all the pain."
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said Trump is "willing to work with anyone." She added, "If Democrats choose to pursue radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people."
A column in the conservative National Review said Trump's veto "can offer a constitutional check on Democratic spending ambitions." It called restraint "a feature of the Founders' design." It cited a White House estimate that Sanders' Medicare for All would add $32 trillion in federal spending over 10 years. Estimates for similar plans ran $28 trillion to $32 trillion, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in 2019. It said total health spending "would likely change by no more than a few trillion dollars." New taxes would partly replace the premiums people pay now, it said. Even so, paying for it would take the equivalent of "tripling payroll taxes."
Reporting through Thursday, November 12, 2026. Sources: Bloomberg Government, Nov. 11, 2026; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, speech transcript, Nov. 10, 2026; Rolling Stone, Nov. 11, 2026; Common Dreams, Nov. 9, 2026; Axios, Nov. 10, 2026; NPR via OPB, Nov. 4, 2026; Mississippi Today, Nov. 11, 2026; Cook Political Report, Nov. 11, 2026; Fox News, Nov. 3, 2026; MS NOW, Nov. 4, 2026; Senate Republican Leader, spring 2026; National Review, Nov. 12, 2026; CRFB, 2019; Roll Call, Feb. 25, 2021; Peter G. Peterson Foundation; U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 7.
