PHOENIX – U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, an Arizona Republican, said Thursday the budget blueprint passed by the House this week is just an early step in a complex process.

“This is what we call a reconciliation budget. It’s this crazy, insane dance we have to go through to build a box for all the committees to fill,” Schweikert told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News.

It’s done this way so the Senate can pass the plan without having to meet the 60-vote filibuster threshold, Schweikert explained.

The House approved it by a narrow 217-215 margin on Tuesday, with Schweikert on the yes side. The budget blueprint for President Donald Trump’s agenda includes $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts.

A series of temporary individual and small business tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration are scheduled expire at the end of the year. Congress will now have to decide which ones can be extended as part of the budget process, Schweikert said.

“It comes back to us in Ways and Means and the other committees, and we have to figure out what we can actually cover and what we can’t,” he said.

The budget blueprint doesn’t specify which programs have to be trimmed to fund the tax cuts Trump is seeking. Instead, it directs committees to devise a way to cut to programs within their scope by a certain amount.

For example, the Energy and Commerce Committee would have to find savings of $880 billion over 10 years under the budget blueprint.

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