The Senate budget is a giant step in the wrong direction.

To the extent those interest savings were realized, the Senate budget would permit the money to be used for a tax cut.

In Albany, however, everybody knows that this Senate budget is not real.

The Senate budget stuck closely to last year's balanced-budget agreement and held tax cuts to an additional $30 billion over five years.

Both the House and Senate budget plans envision steep cuts.

The Senate budget has a decidedly more conservative cast than the House version.

But both the House and Senate budgets implicitly require tax increases in the years ahead.

(The Senate budget does not specifically allow for tax reductions.)

The vote on the Senate budget was 56 to 42, with only three Republicans supporting the plan worked out by the Democratic leadership.

Lawmakers doubt the House blueprint will ever be reconciled with a larger Senate budget.