The budget resolution is a document passed each year by both chambers of Congress that serves as a blueprint for the year's taxing and spending. Though the resolution is ultimately non-binding, there can be procedural advantages to staying within the document's bounds. The main feature of the Republican resolution for 2004 was the president's $726 billion tax cut, but it also included cuts in spending outside of defense and homeland security and $400 billion for Medicare reform and a prescription drug benefit. Democrats proposed an alternative budget that increased nondefense spending, eliminated the tax cuts for the wealthy, reduced the overall size of the cut to $136 billion, and allowed $528 billion (up from the Bush administration's $400 billion) for a prescription drug benefit. Progressives supported this plan because they saw it as an improvement over the Republican version. This Democratic substitute was rejected, 192-236.