Late-night dramatics and surprise defections capped off the push to advance President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar clawback package through procedural hurdles.
But Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package is not over the finish line yet, as lawmakers are set to begin an hourslong stretch of debate over the bill Wednesday morning. Both sides of the aisle will be allotted five hours of debate, but Republicans are likely to use little of their time compared to Democrats, who will try to drag out the process as long as possible.
At stake are clawbacks that would yank back congressionally approved funding for foreign aid programs and public broadcasting, which Senate Democrats, and some Republicans, have admonished.
The president’s rescissions package proposed cutting just shy of $8 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and over $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS.
Republicans have broadly lauded the targets, arguing that they are scraping back funding for ‘woke’ programs that do little more than to gird the government’s spending addiction.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., charged that the cuts in question were ‘just a piece of a larger Republican puzzle.’
He said the goal was using more rescissions packages, the president’s impoundment authority and smaller, pocket rescissions ‘that will pave the way for deeper and more serious spending cuts on things like healthcare, food assistance, energy, and so many other areas – and other democratic safeguards will no longer be around.’
‘They are eliminating Democrats from the process – there’s no discussion, no argument, and there’s no safeguards to help the average American,’ he said. ‘It’s just the billionaires running rampant, and we’re getting what they want.’
Before the vote, Senate Republican leaders agreed to carve out $400 million in cuts in global HIV and AIDS prevention funding that leaders hoped would win over holdouts. But it didn’t work for all.
A trio of Senate Republicans defected – Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. – forcing Vice President JD Vance to cast his sixth and seventh tie-breaking votes of the year to keep the package alive.
He will likely be needed again later Wednesday to pass the bill, once lawmakers complete another vote-a-rama, where both sides of the aisle can offer unlimited amendments to the bill.
Murkowski argued on the Senate floor that the rescissions package was effectively usurping Congress’ duty to legislate.
‘We’re lawmakers, we should be legislating,’ she said. ‘What we’re getting now is a direction from the White House and being told, ‘This is the priority we want you to execute on it. We’ll be back with you with another round.’ I don’t accept that.’
Collins contended that lawmakers actually knew little about how or where the clawbacks would come from, and accused the Office of Management and Budget of not painting a clearer picture on the issue.
‘I recognize the need to reduce excessive spending and I have supported rescissions in our appropriations bills many times, including the 70 rescissions that were included in the year-long funding bill that we are currently operating under,’ she said in a statement. ‘But to carry out our constitutional responsibility, we should know exactly what programs are affected and the consequences of rescissions.’