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). The subject of this vote was final passage of the Republican version of the budget resolution which called for $821.3 billion in discretionary spending in 2005, $152.6 billion in tax cuts over five years, mandatory spending increases (on programs such as Social Security and Medicare) of five percent in 2005, and a seven percent increase in defense spending and a twelve percent increase in homeland security funding in 2005. Progressives voted against the Republican version of the budget resolution. In their view, that resolution 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 voted in favor of the Republican budget resolution even though they felt as though it failed to provide enough tax cuts, domestic spending reductions, and funding increases to the military. On a party line vote of 215-212, the Republicans' budget resolution was adopted and the measure was sent to the Senate for consideration.