By Jackson Richman, Joseph Lord, Nathan Worcester
Contributing Writers
The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a revised $9 billion rescissions package, sending the measure to President Donald Trump for his signature.
The tally was 216-213, with two Republicans — Reps. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa. — voting against the bill.
The passage represents another legislative victory for Trump, following Congress earlier this month passing and the president signing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that included, among numerous things, making the 2017 individual tax cuts permanent.
The rescissions package, which the Senate passed early on Thursday morning, includes $9 billion in cuts identified by the Department of Government Efficiency, part of Republicans’ 2024 promises to reduce federal government spending by cutting waste, fraud and abuse.
The bill includes $1.1 billion in funding cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for two years, affecting NPR, PBS and their member stations. It fulfills a campaign promise by Trump to end federal support for the outlets.
Republicans accused both outlets of being biased in favor of liberal positions.
Historically, rescissions bills using the process laid out in the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 have passed the House easily but floundered in the Senate. Even with the trimming down of cuts to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in the package, the Thursday morning passage of the legislation represents one of the largest rescissions ever authorized under the process by the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the bill exemplifies the GOP’s goal of ensuring fiscal responsibility.
“There has been a renewed commitment to reducing spending. It’s actually become in favor to try and find ways to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
Closely attached to the bill’s passage was another push by House Democrats to force the release of files related to billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation involving minors.
A Republican resolution sponsored by Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., was approved by the House Rules Committee alongside the spending cuts package. Norman’s nonbinding resolution orders the release of files on Epstein’s case and requires the Department of Justice to give Congress “a list of all government officials and politically exposed persons named in the released materials” within 15 days.
Democrats, led by House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., criticized the resolution for being nonbinding and pushed for the adoption of a resolution to release the files “with the force of law.”
PEPFAR Rescissions Cut
A large portion of the cuts — $7.9 billion — comes from funding allocated to the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development, whose responsibilities now fall under the State Department.
Initially, this section included $8.3 billion in cuts. However, that was trimmed down by $400 million after cuts to the PEPFAR program were stripped in order to win over enough votes to pass the bill through the upper chamber.
House Republicans expressed disappointment over the removal of a funding reduction for PEPFAR, whose founding goal is to end the HIV/AIDS pandemic internationally by 2030.
“We’re aware that under normal circumstances, the Republicans in the Senate are not as fiscally responsible as the Republicans in the House,” Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., said. “So [the removal of the cuts to the PEPFAR program] is disappointing, but not surprising, news.”
“I thought that [removing the PEPFAR cuts] was disappointing,” said Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo. “I hope that that’s all that’s removed, that there’s not more, but that’s not a good sign.”
Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., said that she’s “troubled by the fact that [congressional Republicans] are not willing to be very aggressive when it comes to rescissions.”
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said there will likely be a future rescissions package.
“I think it’s likely you’ll see an additional package. We’re not there,” he said. “We’re not here to announce anything in this front but in terms of seeing whether this was a useful effort, that was not a waste of time, it certainly has satisfied that threshold, and we’ll see where we go from here.”
Democrats, meanwhile, were critical of the bill.
“The bill will starve local and rural radio stations,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a speech on the Senate floor ahead of the vote, citing the cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said the bill would empower China.
“News of this bill’s passage will be met with cheers in Beijing, which is already celebrating America’s retreat from the world under President Trump,” she said in a prepared statement. “Make no mistake, these cuts will make America less safe and less prosperous.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the former majority leader, voted to pass the bill during the Thursday morning vote, despite earlier objections to the potential impact that the legislation could have on the United States’ ability to project “soft power,” meaning nonmilitary power.
