The United States Senate narrowly cleared the first procedural hurdle for President Donald Trump’s (R) plan to reverse $9.4 billion worth of federal spending, with Vice President JD Vance casting the decisive vote late Tuesday evening.
This vote released the plan, known as a rescission package, from committee consideration and sent it to the chamber floor.
Put forward by the White House, the Senate is considering a proposal to pull back billions of dollars in previously approved federal spending. U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) ultimately voted against advancing the measure in a procedural vote Tuesday.
“The rescissions package has a big problem – nobody really knows what program reductions are in it,” said Sen. Collins in a statement “That isn’t because we haven’t had time to review the bill. Instead, the problem is that [Office of Management and Budget] has never provided the details that would normally be part of this process.”
Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joined Collins in voting against the cuts, resulting in a 50-50 vote before the Vice President weighed in.
Washington D.C. based outlet Roll Call reported that an agreement had been reached to conclude debate on the rescission package by 1:30pm Wednesday, at which point a so-called “vote-a-rama” on amendments to the package would begin.
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, presidents don’t often seek rescission packages, but Congress regularly invokes them to reappropriate unspent funds.
White House’s Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) rescission request started a 45-day clock for Congress to act.
A June 3rd thread on X posted by the OMB details a number of the initiatives that the White House sought to see defunded through this rescission package, including several LGBTQ-related programs in places like Uganda and the Western Balkans, as well as several million dollars worth of environmental programs throughout the world.
This post also highlights a proposed $4 million cut for legume systems research and $135 million for the World Health Organization.
One of the most talked about cuts included in the bill has been $1.1 billion previously allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the organization responsible for distributing funding to local public radio and television stations.
Federal funding for NPR and PBS also comes through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. According to the Washington Post, about 15 percent of PBS’ funding comes from the federal government, as well as around 1 percent of NPR’s funding.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) had all expressed concerns over the proposed public broadcasting cuts.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) reportedly agreed to vote in support of the package after the White House agreed to transfer millions of dollars to the Interior Department for tribal radio stations.
“It’s not a huge sum of money compared to the rest of the rescissions package but for me it was very important because these radio stations would not survive without that funding,” Sen. Rounds told reporters.
President Trump has strongly pushed back on the idea of stripping the cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from the rescission package.
“It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Recissions Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than CNN & MSDNC put together,” Trump said in a Truth Social post last week. “Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Although the original package included cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), OMB Director Russell Vought told reporters Tuesday that this provision has been removed, bringing the total value of the cuts from $9.4 billion to $9 billion.
By removing this provision, the rescission package will need to be re-approved by the House before it can be sent to the President’s desk for a signature.
As Chair of the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Collins pushed back on cutting PEPFAR funding, but reporting from the Washington Post said it was not clear at the time if removing this would be enough for her to vote in support of the rescission package.
“Cutting funding now, funding that is aimed at preventing disease transmission, would be extraordinarily ill-advised and shortsighted,” Collins said of the proposed PEPFAR cuts last month during a hearing.
If this package is ultimately approved, it would be the first rescission package to be passed at the request of the president since the Clinton Administration.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said that there was “a lot of interest among our members” in seeing the PEPFAR cuts removed and reportedly expressed hope that the House would be receptive to this change if the Senate is able to advance the package.
In order for these federal spending cuts to take effect, a final version of the rescission package approved by both the House and Senate must be on the President’s desk by Friday. Otherwise, the request will lapse, and federal spending will remain as is.
