House Republicans late Thursday night approved the first batch of cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), sending the $9 billion package to President Trump’s desk in a big victory for the GOP.
The legislation — which claws back already-approved federal funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting — cleared the chamber in a mostly party-line 216-213 vote less than one day after the Senate passed the measure.
Two Republicans, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Mike Turner (Ohio), voted with every Democrat against the measure.
Trump is expected to sign the bill soon, as Republicans face a Friday deadline to enact the cuts or release the funds to the organizations they were appropriated for.
The package takes aim at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS — two outlets that Republicans have labeled as biased — as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which DOGE targeted early in the Trump administration.
Republicans see the bill as a critical “test run” for the party, as Trump administration officials have already indicated they aim to send multiple special requests to Congress to claw back more funding if the first package makes it through.
The request initially sent by the White House, known as a rescissions package, called for $9.4 billion in cuts to federal funding previously approved by Congress, including $8.3 billion for USAID and foreign aid, as well as more than $1 billion in public broadcasting funds.
But the White House ended up agreeing to exempt the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which was established under former President George W. Bush in 2003 and totaled about $400 million, after those cuts became a critical point of contention for moderate GOP lawmakers.
Republicans said they also reached a deal with the administration seeking to shield tribal stations from cuts to the Corporation For Public Broadcasting.
Republicans in both chambers have voiced strong support for the overall package and say the cuts are overdue. Many in the party have long scrutinized the scope of funding for foreign aid and accused public radio and television of political bias.
But the proposal also saw some resistance from Senate GOP appropriators earlier this week. The skeptics scolded the administration for trying to make an end run around the normal appropriations process and complained the request didn’t have enough information, particularly when compared to the last rescissions request approved by Congress under former President George H. W. Bush.
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) specifically singled out a proposed $2.5 billion in cuts to the Development Assistance account. She noted in a statement that the account “covers everything from basic education, to water and sanitation, to food security,” but said lawmakers still lacked key details as to how those programs would be affected.
White House budget chief Russell Vought told reporters on Thursday that the administration “gave the same amount of detail and information that previous rescissions packages had.”
“This is the same level of detail that appropriators do when they provide a bill,” he argued. “They say this is the amount that we’re providing, or they have a rescission, and they put the amount of rescission, same thing that they do.”
He added that he respected people “who are making the argument,” but he disagreed, noting the Office of Budget and Management worked with House appropriators while crafting the request.
Some Republicans have also warned the president’s use of the rare tool to secure cuts to funding previously approved by Congress risks further eroding trust between both parties as lawmakers ramp up their annual funding work.
Vought said Thursday that another rescissions package is “likely to come soon,” though he stopped short of offering specifics as to what programs could be on the chopping block.
Senate Democrats have warned the passage of this rescissions package and further efforts by the Trump administration to claw back funding with GOP-only votes threaten already fragile bipartisan negotiations to hash out full-year government funding bills.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) earlier this month said passage of the rescissions package “would be an affront to the bipartisan appropriations process.”
“That’s why a number of Senate Republicans know it is absurd for them to expect Democrats to act as business as usual and engage in a bipartisan appropriations process to fund the government, while they concurrently plot to pass a purely partisan rescissions bill to defund those same programs negotiated on a bipartisan basis behind the scenes,” he continued, later adding: “This is beyond a bait and switch – it is a bait and poison-to-kill.”
At the same time, Vought also told reporters Thursday that the annual appropriations process “has to be less bipartisan.” He added that the power of the purse remains with Congress, but he continued: “It’s a ceiling. It is not a floor. It is not the notion that you have to spend every last dollar of that.”
Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told The Hill shortly after his comments that Vought was “absolutely wrong.”
“We have the power of the purse here, and we are not going to stand back and let the administration erode that.”
With less than 20 legislative days on the calendar ahead of a Sept. 30 government shutdown deadline, both chambers are running behind in marking up and pushing their annual funding bills across the floor — increasing the likelihood that Congress will have to resort to a stopgap measure to keep the lights on and buy time for lawmakers to finish their funding work.
But it remains an open question as to what that stopgap could look like.
Asked if House GOP leadership has begun discussing plans for a short-term funding patch, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told The Hill on Wednesday: “No, we haven’t talked about that.”
“We want the appropriations process to work and ultimately to get an agreement in a negotiation with the Senate, as the Senate finally starts passing bills,” he said.
