By Brendan Scanland
WASHINGTON, D.C. (WZMQ 19 News) – Thursday afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives took a big step toward making spending cuts—identified by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)— permanent.
The rescissions package would codify billions of dollars in cuts identified by Elon Musk and DOGE. Specifically, $9.4 billion in federal dollars— already authorized to be spent by Congress—would be clawed back or rescinded, if the package passes the Senate and is signed by President Trump.
Within the first few months of President Trump’s second term, the controversial Department of Government Efficiency identified more than $9 billion in what it calls “wasteful spending.” The package would cut $8.3 billion from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as well as other international aid programs.
It also includes over $1 billion in cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides funding to NPR and PBS. Democrats say that funding is essential to the functioning of the public media system and the communities they serve.
Earlier this month, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and dozens of Senate Democrats sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R- SD) expressing their opposition to the CPB cuts.
“Millions of people across the country whose stations rely on CPB funding for a significant percentage of their budget would be at risk of losing access to public television’s services. These are services that nobody else in the media world is providing, but it’s exactly the work for which public broadcasting was created, and they are delivering to our communities every day… Public broadcasting is an essential service that should be protected, not decimated. For this reason, we request that you prioritize maintaining and continuing funding for CPB,” the senators said in the letter.
Democrats have fiercely criticized the cuts for public broadcasting, USAID and other proposed rescissions for months. But even a handful of House Republicans have expressed concerns about cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief—a program launched by George W. Bush aimed at combatting HIV and AIDS globally. That program has been credited with saving millions of lives.
Thursday afternoon, the package narrowly passed the House, 214–212, with a handful of Republicans voting against it. Most Republicans were on board to codify the DOGE cuts, including Rep. Jack Bergman (R- Mich.). WZMQ 19 News asked the Congressman about some of the controversial cuts in the package, including those to USAID.
“I dealt with USAID in the late nineties when I was in uniform and European Command. And I saw the, I’ll just say waste—I won’t say fraud—of the NGOs. We needed to reform and reduce USAID to get it back where it needs to be, not eliminated,” said Rep. Bergman. “We need to utilize the dollars that we have appropriately going forward knowing we’ll never have enough- there’s always more requests than there are dollars available. How do we prioritize and then stop spending money where it doesn’t need to be spent any longer.”
The federal government spent $6.75 trillion in fiscal year 2024, according to the Treasury Department. The funds that would be clawed back in this package amount to roughly 0.14% of total spending in FY 2024.
The next step for the package is the Senate. Republican leaders have reiterated they’d like to pass the package as soon as possible.
