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Emerging from an all-night session marked more by exhaustion than drama, Senate Republicans squeaked through a budget blueprint Friday morning that would repeal the Affordable Care Act, fundamentally remake federal health care for the poor and elderly, and push the federal deficit toward zero over the next decade. (Weisman, 3/27)

The Senate passed a Republican budget for fiscal year 2016 early Friday morning after a grueling, round-the-clock marathon of amendment votes. ... Budgets are nonbinding and never become law, but they set the overall funding levels used to write spending bills considered later in the year. Top Republicans have said they plan to use spending bills to push GOP policies while avoiding the recent deadline-driven standoffs between Republicans and President Barack Obama. If both chambers can pass a unified budget, Republicans can also tap into procedural shortcuts enabling them to bypass Senate Democrats on some legislation, potentially including a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, though Mr. Obama would veto it. (Peterson and Crittenden, 3/27)

The ten-year fiscal blueprint achieves balance in ten years with deep spending cuts and no new taxes. It also calls for full repeal of President Obama's health care law and increased Medicare savings. The contours of the 2016 campaign season took shape throughout the lengthy Thursday debate, where senators powered through a marathon session of votes on politically charged amendments to the GOP's 10-year budget proposal. The voted concluded at 3 a.m. Friday. (Davis, 3/27)

While that deadline has been routinely ignored in the past with little consequence, Republicans are eager to demonstrate they can govern, particularly when it comes to fiscal and budgetary issues. So it’s a good bet GOP leaders will work hard to try and meet that mid-April deadline. It won’t be easy to strike a deal that House Republican firebrands, defense hawks and Senate GOP moderates can all agree on. Hot button issues like the Pentagon budget, Medicare and Medicaid and domestic spending will all need to be resolved. Fiscal conservatives are angling for sharp cuts in government spending, while moderates are wary of going too far. And any budget that calls for major changes to entitlement programs like Medicare could be very risky. (Kim and Bade, 3/27)

Next up are compromise budget talks between the two houses, after which lawmakers will begin writing legislation to translate the non-binding plan into specific proposals that are likely to spark a struggle with President Barack Obama. (3/27)

Republicans controlling the House and Senate are pushing competing budget plans, though both nonbinding blueprints call for steep cuts to social programs like Medicaid and to federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act as the chief means of achieving a small surplus within 10 years. The two plans would boost defense spending by the same level, but they take different approaches on Medicare. (3/26)

Senators on Thursday rejected an amendment that backed restoring more than a trillion dollars to Medicaid. The amendment would have rolled back more than $1.2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid. (Carney, 3/26)