Quote:Today, the United States Senate voted 50-47 on party lines to proceed on what is expected to be a nail-biting attempt beginning Thursday to pass an actual 2018 budget. With Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) out indefinitely due to medical issues, the GOP can only afford one defection on the final budget vote. That's a problem for the party, because heavy doubts are already surfacing among two notoriously independent-minded senators—Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and John McCain (R-Arizona). If both bail, the budget is doomed, and with it, tax reform.

Helpfully, and clarifyingly, the two longtime antagonists are squaring off over essentially the same issue—military spending—so the defeated senator could conceivably find himself alone in opposition. But McCain's desire to leave no dollar unspent on defense is broadly popular within the GOP, while Paul's principled objective of cutting the size of government…well, it used to be popular among Republicans, anyway.