The Senate voted early Thursday morning to claw back $9 billion in federal funding for foreign aid programs and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, after some 12 hours of debate on amendments.
Senators voted 51-48 to advance the bill after reinstating a Bush-era international AIDS program from the White House’s requested cuts. Democrats forced hours of consecutive amendment roll calls Wednesday to burn-up the clock, but in the end Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the only Republican no votes.
The legislation now heads to the House, where lawmakers must pass it by midnight tonight or otherwise the Office of Management and Budget will be forced to release its hold on the funding it has targeted for rescission.
The passage of the bill will cut only one tenth of 1 percent from the federal budget but it is a huge precedent.
The last presidential rescission proposal was made for fiscal year 2000 during the Clinton administration. No presidential rescission proposals were requested during the presidencies of George W. Bush or of Barack Obama, although George W. Bush proposed "cancellations" of funding in the 2007 federal budget through a message that did not use the formal presidential rescission procedure.
In April 2018, President Trump announced his intention to develop a rescission proposal in response to the large funding increases contained in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, which had passed the previous month. The proposal was scaled back, however, after pushback by Congressional leadership to include just $15 billion in rescissions mainly targeting funds that were already unspent. In June 2018, the bill, the Spending Cuts to Expired and Unnecessary Programs Act (H.R. 3), passed the House 210–206 but failed in the Senate 48–50.
Against that backdrop, cutting even one tenth of 1 percent from the federal budget is a huge win for conservatives.
While the House vote on final passage of the bill is seen as assured, we urge conservatives to make sure we cement our apparent win by calling House Members through the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121) to demand a YES vote on President Trump’s rescission package.
After that, on to cutting the $2 trillion Elon Musk’s DOGE team says could be cut in future rescissions and next year’s budget.
- DOGE cuts
- recissions bill
- Senate recissions bill
- Department of Government Efficiency
- Big Government Republicans
- Foreign aid
- Public broadcasting
- RINOs
