House Votes to Claw Back $9B for Broadcasting, Foreign Aid

The House gave final approval to President Trump's request to claw back about $9 billion for public broadcasting and foreign aid early Friday as Republicans intensified their efforts to target institutions and programs they view as bloated or out of step with their agenda. The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won't be the last, the AP reports. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda.

• The House passed the bill by a vote of 216-213, with two Republicans voting against it. It now goes to Trump for his signature. "We need to get back to fiscal sanity and this is an important step," said House Speaker Mike Johnson."

• The package cancels about $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and nearly $8 billion for a variety of foreign aid programs, many designed to help countries where drought, disease, and political unrest endure.
• Trump praised the move in an all-caps post on Truth Social, saying the package included cuts to "atrocious NPR and public broadcasting, where millions of dollars a year were wasted." "Republicans have tried doing this for 40 years and failed....but no more," he wrote. "This is big!!!"
• Opponents voiced concerns not only about the programs targeted, but about Congress ceding its spending powers to the executive branch as investments approved on a bipartisan basis were being subsequently canceled on party-line votes. They said previous rescission efforts had at least some bipartisan buy-in and described the Republican package as unprecedented.
• The effort to claw back a sliver of federal spending came just weeks after Republicans also muscled through Trump's tax and spending cut bill without any Democratic support. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that measure will increase the US debt by about $3.3 trillion over the coming decade. "No one is buying the the notion that Republicans are actually trying to improve wasteful spending," said Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.
• The package passed the Senate in a 51-48 vote a day earlier. "We have never, never before seen bipartisan investments slashed through a partisan rescissions package," Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said, per the New York Times. "Do not start now. Not when we are working, at this very moment, in a bipartisan way to pass our spending bills. Bipartisanship doesn't end with any one line being crossed; it erodes. It breaks down bit by bit, until one day there is nothing left."