By JM Rieger and Niels Lesniewski

Republican senators touted the fiscal 2016 budget resolution ahead of a vote Tuesday, which the Senate later adopted 51-48, marking the first time Congress adopted a budget resolution since 2009. At a weekly news conference ahead of the vote, Sen. Roger Wicker said Republicans would honor the budgetary constraints going forward, which will be tested as the Senate begins the process of drafting spending bills in the coming weeks. “We will abide by the caps that we enact this afternoon, and that is a significant achievement that we have not had before,” Wicker said. “And then, it gives us absolutely a path to a reconciliation bill to change the affordable health care act into something that works with market principles and provides better choices and better health care for the American people.”