Senate Republican leadership is trying to shore up votes for President Donald Trump’s $9.4 billion rescission request — the White House’s attempt to give some legitimacy to the Department of Government Efficiency’s rampage through the federal government.
But not everyone in the Senate Republican conference is on board with the cuts the White House is trying to force feed Congress via a constitutionally backwards rescissions package. A handful of senators are hoping to amend the package and water down the proposed cuts to make it more palatable.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is among the vocal critics of the bill. Collins has previously indicated she has concerns over the cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) — a President George W. Bush-era global HIV and AIDS prevention program.
“I have already made clear I don’t support the cuts to PEPFAR and child and maternal health,” Collins told Politico Tuesday night. She has reportedly declined on several occasions this week to elaborate on how much funding she wants to protect.
Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) have also indicated they want changes to the bill in order to protect some public radio stations, specifically those serving remote parts of the country, like Native American reservations and parts of rural Alaska.
“Whatever form it takes, we can’t lose these small-town radio stations across the country that are literally the only way to get out an emergency message,” Rounds told reporters this week.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) can only lose three GOP senators and still get the bill across the finish line since rescission packages follow a fast track procedure and can be passed with just a simple majority.
The White House’s rescissions package includes billions in cuts to federal funding, previously authorized by Congress — $8.3 billion in foreign aid and $1.1 billion from public broadcasting. The funds are just a portion of the congressionally appropriated federal spending that Elon Musk’s DOGE team lawlessly rescinded or froze earlier this year.
The public broadcasting portion includes funds for supporting national programming for the National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). But the majority of those programming funds are typically distributed to smaller, local public television and radio stations around the country that serve rural areas and do not have the same means to fundraise for themselves.
The rescission request also includes cuts to several accounts across the State Department, including $900 million for global health programs: $500 million for funds related to preventing infectious diseases and supporting child and maternal health and another $400 million to address the global HIV epidemic. It includes another $800 million for migration and refugee assistance.
Meanwhile others in the Senate Republican conference argue that combating any element of the package will make it seem like Republicans are not serious about cutting government spending. (Especially after just passing legislation that will add at least $4 trillion to the national deficit over 10 years, despite how Republicans have tried to spin it.)
“After all the tough talk by Republicans in the Senate about the need to reduce spending, if we can’t agree to reduce $9 billion worth of spending porn, then we all ought to go buy paper bags and put them over our heads,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said, according to Politico.
As Thune and the rest of leadership tries to get their conference on board, Senate Republicans are racing against a tickling clock.
The rules say once the president submits the rescission request, a 45-day countdown begins during which Congress can approve, reject or ignore the president’s request. That means by the end of the day on July 18, the request President Trump sent to Capitol Hill will expire. If it does expire, the administration would be forced to spend the money as lawmakers originally allocated it.
The House rubber-stamped the package with no changes in mid-June and sent it over to the Senate. The Senate will likely amend the rescission package, which means they will have to send it back to the House again and hope that they swallow the changes made by the Senate — just like the lower chamber did with the Senate’s version of the “big beautiful” bill.
Meanwhile, the White House has signaled it may try to side step the whole separation of powers thing by using a questionable tactic to cancel billions of dollars in federal spending without getting approval from Congress, per the New York Times. The possible move, known as a pocket rescission, would require the Trump administration to wait until closer to September 30, the end of the fiscal year, to once again formally ask Congress to claw back a set of funds. That request would start another 45 day clock, in which the president is legally allowed to delay spending the funds in question as it waits for Congress to make a decision on cancelling the previously appropriated spending.
But even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the freeze in place would ultimately allow the Trump administration to not spend the money until it expires at the end of the fiscal year.
The Government Accountability Office did rule that pocket rescission is illegal during the first Trump administration, but it’s possible the White House will still try to use the legally untested power, which would likely kickstart a high-stakes legal battle.
"…we all ought to go buy paper bags and put them over our heads,”
I’d advocate for plastic bags, but paper would be a good start.
Oh my…
How about the dry cleaner bags with the warning not to put them over your head?
I would think they’d love being against a tickling clock.
Yes Rounds and Sullivan are correct. And biggly correct for their states, but that doesn’t mean that everywhere in the other 48 states has good good radio coverage either. And especially when corporations are buying up radio stations everywhere, smaller towns and just outside bigger cities. They’re putting out the same thing over the air waves, and not specific to the areas that their stations reach.
Discovered/rediscovered this in May when I drove from StL to Austin.