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US Senate passes aid and public broadcasting cuts in victory for Trump US Senate passes aid and public broadcasting cuts in victory for Trump
(about 4 hours later)
Members vote 51 to 48 in favour of president’s request to slash $9bn in spending already approved by CongressMembers vote 51 to 48 in favour of president’s request to slash $9bn in spending already approved by Congress
The US Senate has approved Donald Trump’s plan for billions of dollars in cuts to funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, handing the Republican president another victory as he exerts control over Congress with little opposition. Senate Republicans on Wednesday won passage of a bill demanded by Donald Trump that will claw back $9bn Congress had previously approved for foreign aid programs and public broadcasting, as the White House moves to slash funding for government programs.
The Senate voted 51 to 48 in favour of Trump’s request to cut $9bn in spending already approved by Congress. The legislation, known as a rescissions package, was approved by a narrow margin of 51 votes to 48. All Democrats opposed the bill, along with two Republicans, creating a tie vote that was broken by the vice-president, JD Vance.
Most of the cuts are to programmes to assist foreign countries stricken by disease, war and natural disasters, but the plan also eliminates the $1.1bn the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was due to receive over the next two years. The Senate majority leader, John Thune, called it a “small, but important step toward fiscal sanity”.
Trump and many of his fellow Republicans argue that spending on public broadcasting is an unnecessary expense and reject its news coverage as blighted by “anti-right bias”. The bill now returns to the House of Representatives for its final approval, ahead of a Friday deadline for Republicans to pass the legislation, otherwise the Trump administration will be obligated to spend the money.
Standalone rescissions packages have not passed in decades, with lawmakers reluctant to cede their constitutionally mandated control of spending. But the Republicans, who hold narrow majorities in the Senate and House, have shown little appetite for resisting Trump’s policies since he began his second term in January. The package will cancel $1.1bn budgeted for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS, and about $8bn meant for foreign assistance programs – both of which have fallen dramatically out of favor with Trump’s new administration.
The $9bn at stake is small in the context of the $6.8tn federal budget, and represents a tiny portion of all the funds approved by Congress that the Trump administration has held up while it has pursued sweeping cuts, many ordered by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Dog)e. But not all Republican senators shared that opposition, and on Tuesday, Thune agreed with demands to preserve $400m in funding for Pepfar, a program credited with saving millions of people from infection or death from HIV that was created in 2003 under the Republican president George W Bush.
By mid-June, Trump was blocking $425bn in funding that had been appropriated and approved by Congress, according to Democratic lawmakers tracking frozen funding. Thune has described the rescissions package as “commonsense legislation” that will target “waste, fraud and abuse” in government spending, a term Republicans have deployed repeatedly since Trump took office to criticize programs they seek to dismantle. Some cuts, he said, were recommended by the so-called “department of government efficiency” downsizing initiative that Elon Musk previously led.
However, the president and his supporters have promised more of the “rescission” requests to eliminate previously approved spending in what they say is an effort to pare back the federal government. “My Democrat colleagues may not want to acknowledge it, but we have a serious spending problem in this country,” Thune said during a floor speech on Tuesday. “And the very least we can do in response is to target some of the egregious misuses of taxpayer dollars that we are addressing today in this bill.”
The House of Representatives passed the rescissions legislation, without altering Trump’s request, by 214-212 last month. Four Republicans joined 208 Democrats in voting no. Two of the Senate’s 53 Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, joined Democrats in voting against the legislation. “You don’t need to gut the entire Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Murkowski told the Senate. Trump and many fellow Republicans argue that spending on public broadcasting is an unnecessary expense and say its news coverage is blighted by an “anti-right bias”.
But after a handful of Republican senators balked at the extent of the cuts to global health programmes, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said on Tuesday that Pepfar, a global programme to fight HIV/Aids launched in 2003 by President George W Bush, was being exempted. Murkowski also said the Trump administration had not provided assurances that battles against diseases such as malaria and polio worldwide would be maintained. She urged Congress to assert its role in deciding how federal funds were spent. Standalone rescissions packages have not passed in decades, with lawmakers reluctant to cede their constitutionally mandated control of spending.
The change brought the size of the package of cuts to $9bn from $9.4bn, requiring another House vote before the measure could be sent to the White House for Trump to sign into law.
The rescissions must pass by Friday. Otherwise, the request would expire and the White House required to adhere to spending plans passed by Congress.
Two of the Senate’s 53 Republicans , Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, joined Democrats in voting against the legislation. “You don’t need to gut the entire Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Murkowski said told the Senate
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She said the Trump administration had not provided assurances that battles against diseases such as malaria and polio worldwide would be maintained. Murkowski called for Congress to assert its role in deciding how federal funds were spent. Democrats had no leverage to stop the bill’s passage. While the minority party can use the Senate’s filibuster to stop the chamber from considering most legislation they oppose, a rescissions package is allowed to be passed with a simple majority. Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer condemned the bill as an opening salvo in the Trump administration’s offensive against important government services, and accused Republicans of giving up Congress’s constitutionally mandated control of federal spending.
The Republican Senate majority leader, John Thune of South Dakota, called Trump’s request a “small, but important step toward fiscal sanity”.
Democrats scoffed at that, noting that congressional Republicans had this month passed a massive package of tax and spending cuts that nonpartisan analysts estimated would add more than $3tn to the country’s $36.2tn debt.
Democrats accused Republicans of giving up Congress’s constitutionally mandated control of federal spending.
“Today, Senate Republicans turn this chamber into a subservient rubber stamp for the executive, at the behest of Donald Trump,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, representing New York, said. “Republicans embrace the credo of cut, cut, cut now, and ask questions later.”“Today, Senate Republicans turn this chamber into a subservient rubber stamp for the executive, at the behest of Donald Trump,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, representing New York, said. “Republicans embrace the credo of cut, cut, cut now, and ask questions later.”
The cuts would overturn bipartisan spending agreements most recently passed in a full-year stopgap funding bill in March. Democrats warn a partisan cut could make it more difficult to negotiate government funding bills that must pass with bipartisan agreement by 30 September to avoid a shutdown. Reuters contributed reporting
Appropriations bills require 60 votes to move ahead in the Senate but the rescissions package needs just 51, meaning Republicans can pass it without Democratic support.