WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 -- Senate Republicans departed for their August recess Friday without casting a single vote on the SAVE America Act, the sweeping domestic legislation President Trump has spent months demanding Congress pass, a failure that lays bare the deepening divisions inside the Republican caucus over how aggressively to cut federal spending.

The collapse came not from Democratic obstruction but from the president himself. Trump called Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin earlier this week to reject a roughly $150 billion reconciliation package that Johnson had assembled as the most plausible vehicle for portions of the SAVE America agenda. Trump told Johnson the bill was not ambitious enough and that the Senate should keep working t...