Democrats Will ‘Reluctantly’ Vote For Budget Deal, Says Schumer

All eyes are on the Democratic-led U.S. Senate, where a two-year budget deal that overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives last week is expected to be approved, despite few Republican senators having expressed support for the measure.

The Senate will consider the bill on Tuesday.

“I think it’s a pretty safe bet it’s going to pass,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday. “After what happened in the House where so many Republicans voted for it, I think Mitch McConnell, the Republican leadership, knows they can’t let it go down.” [Watch the MSNBC clip below.]

The agreement between budget leaders Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., has set spending over $1 trillion for the next two years. Despite the spending increase, the bill made it through the Republican-led House with 332-94 votes. GOP leaders in the Senate seem less impressed with the budget conference committee's breakthrough; Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, plans to oppose the deal because it broke the mandated spending caps.

The minority leader is not the only lawmaker in the Senate who doesn't love the Ryan-Murray budget plan. According to Schumer, almost all the Democrats will vote for the budget agreement, which doesn’t contain any expansion of unemployment benefits, but will do so “reluctantly.”

“We will make a shot at trying to do unemployment insurance separately and then work on it next year,” Schumer told “Morning Joe.” “It will be hard, but I think most Democrats, realizing that government shutdown is a brutal alternative, will reluctantly vote for it.”