For the first time in six years, a joint congressional budget plan was approved Tuesday by the U.S. Senate, approving a 10-year plan to cut spending by $5.3 trillion, overhaul poverty programs and President Barack Obama’s health care law, the New York Times reported.

The proposed budget is expected to produce a balanced budget in less than a decade.

“It’s going to keep us very busy over the next few weeks,” Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander told the New York Times. “We’ll see what comes of it.”

The blueprint was passed 51 to 48 with two Republicans voting against — Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. The differing senators stated the budget plan isn’t strong enough to cut spending.

But the journey to getting this major budget plan approved was a battle. First off, the Republican chairmen in charge to putting the blueprints for this plan together had to draft legislation to prescribe the cuts. And the committee slacked on getting those together. The parties were even calling for a more bipartisan approach.

The biggest task for the committee is drafting legislation to repeal the health care law. They plan to turn Medicaid into blocks of grants in each state. They also hope to convert Medicare from aiming to aiding the elderly to “private health insurance.”

There’s other steps following this budget approval. In the coming week, the House Appropriations Committee will draft a bill to finance transportation and housing programs. Even so, lawmakers expect one of these bills to fail, prompting the possibility of new budget talks.

“With the numbers we’re having to appropriate to, I’m not sure we can pass these bills,” Kentucky representative and House Appropriations Committee chairman Harold Rogers told New York Times. “I think there’s a deal to be had.”

Not since 2001 has there been a decrease into the federal deficit. And to get there the budget will call for $4.2 trillion cuts for Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps in the next decade.  Many senators believe this is a major step to balancing the budget and others call it “historic.”

Still, Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi — the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee — mentioned to the New York Times that he believes it would be difficult to remain in the parameters of the strict budget. Otherwise he remains hopeful.

“We’re not going to wave the white flag on the day we passed a budget agreement,” Wicker told the New York Times.

Republicans believe that the budget will stimulate the economy. The party calls this stimulation theory “dynamic scoring” and it hopes to generate $124 billion in the next ten years, the budget calculus stated.

The some Democrats question the budget’s ability to balance the budget without raising taxes and suggest plans to work around it. The Democrats proposed to cut Pell Grant scholarships — or cap the number of receipts or benefits.

They also mentioned cutting off health insurance to as many as 27 million people currently cover under Obama Care. Lastly, they party said to cut the $600 billion from national programs such as lunches, food stamps, tax credits for the poor.

President Obama has promised to veto any bill that resembles the spending caps of 2011 budget legislation.

“We must work together in bipartisan fashion to fix the damage,”Senator John McCain told the New York Times.

Senator Ron Wyden, a democrat of Oregon, didn’t echoes those beliefs.

“I’m always open to bipartisan approaches and fresh ideas,” Wyden told the New York Times. “But these ideas are way out of the mainstream. I just find it hard to see how you would move forward with them.”