The purpose of the congressional budget process-and specifically the budget resolution-is to set an overall financial blueprint early in the congressional session to guide future spending decisions in the House and Senate on appropriations bills, tax legislation, and changes to mandatory spending programs such as Social Security and Medicare. While a budget resolution is non-binding and Congress is not required to stay within its limits, the majority party gains procedural protections during future debates on spending legislation if those measures stay within the budget caps set in the budget resolution (budget resolutions, it should be noted, are drafted by the White House but require congressional approval). Often, however, alternative budget resolutions which reflect the priorities of factions within the majority or minority party are drafted and debated on the House floor. The subject of this vote was a budget resolution drafted by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), a caucus of forty or so African-American lawmakers who seek to advance the interests of minorities and other underrepresented groups within the House. If adopted, the CBC's budget resolution would have added $43.4 billion to the Republican budget resolution for domestic programs such as education and health care, included an additional $5 billion in deficit reduction, rescinded tax cuts for individuals who earn over $200,000 per year, and reduced funding for the ballistic missile defense program. Progressives supported the CBC budget resolution because, in their view, it was more fiscally responsible that the Republican version. The Republican version of the budget resolution, Progressives argued, contained what they characterized as an excessive amount of tax cuts and an inadequate amount of funding to reduce the budget deficit. Progressives argued that after three years of tax cutting by Congress and the White House-tax cutting which has contributed to record high budget deficits and an additional $1.2 trillion to the nation's debt-it was now time to restore some fiscal discipline in government. Conservatives opposed the CBC's budget resolution on the grounds that it failed to provide enough tax cuts, domestic spending reductions, and funding increases to the military. On a vote of 119-302, the CBC budget resolution was struck down and the spending priorities contained within it were not incorporated into the Republican version of the budget resolution.