WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives on Thursday approved budget cuts proposed by the White House that would claw back funding for public broadcasters NPR and PBS, as well as foreign aid that Congress had previously approved on a bipartisan basis.
The measure passed 214 to 212, with four Republicans and all Democrats opposed.
Republicans argue the $9.4 billion in spending cuts are necessary to address the nation’s mounting debt even though last month they passed a package of tax and spending cuts that could add an extra $3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years. The cuts passed Thursday, if approved by the Senate, would amount to less than a hundredth of a percent of projected federal spending for this year.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has touted the so-called rescissions package as a win for the Department of Government Efficiency, the effort previously headed by billionaire Elon Musk that dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development earlier this year without direct approval from Congress.
“This rescission package is a critical step, and it’s one of many,” Johnson said Tuesday. “There’ll be several of these that will come from the White House who work together with the administration to cut out all the fraud, waste and abuse.”
Much of what DOGE has done has been stopped by federal courts because the Constitution says the legislative branch, not the executive, is tasked with setting federal spending. Thursday’s vote represents the first attempt by Congress and the White House to take Musk’s work and make it official.
Democrats blasted the content of the rescissions package, saying the cuts to foreign aid would weaken America’s standing around the world, while simultaneously mocking the scale of the cuts relative to Musk’s early ambitions to find $2 trillion in savings.
“These cuts will lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, devastating the most vulnerable in the world at a time when China and Russia and Iran are working overtime to challenge American influence,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said Wednesday. “This is self-sabotage masquerading as savings and it’s not even a lot of money.”
At first, it appeared the bill would fail, but two Republicans, Reps. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.), switched from no to yes. LaLota changed his vote after several minutes of intense conversation with Speaker Johnson, who made a quick cutting motion to the presiding member, who then gaveled the vote to a close.
Afterward, LaLota declined to share details of the talk, but suggested they may have discussed the fate of a $40,000 deduction for state and local taxes that was included in the larger tax-and-spending-cut bill that passed the House last month. Senate Republicans have suggested they’d like to change the provision, but LaLota expressed confidence that wouldn’t happen.
“I expect my constituents will be quite pleased when they get $40,000 worth of SALT,” LaLota told reporters.
Republicans were helped by four Democratic absences on top of the three vacancies left by Democratic lawmakers who’ve died in office this year. (Two Republicans missed the vote as well.)
Congress has the power to cancel funds that the federal government has not yet spent but had previously appropriated under the rescissions process. Rescission requests, which are initiated by the White House, cannot be filibustered in the Senate, meaning they require a simple majority to pass.
Still, the bill could face problems in the upper chamber, where Republicans hold 53 seats. Republican senators have expressed concerns with its cuts to global health funding, including the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the George W. Bush-era program that is credited with saving millions of lives in Africa and elsewhere.
“PEPFAR cuts make no sense to me whatsoever, given the extraordinary record of PEPFAR in saving lives,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters last week.
Other GOP senators have raised concerns about the $1.1 billion in cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding to NPR and PBS. Republicans have long complained about the public broadcasters, accusing them of being biased against the GOP, but rural TV and radio stations rely more on the federal funding than do stations in big cities.
“I’m a supporter of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It’s a lifeline for many of my small, rural communities,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters Wednesday.
“In some cases the only way to do public announcements about emergencies or anything going on in the community — I got nine tribes in South Dakota, they have these radio stations that are basically funded in part by that portion,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said. “They have no way of supporting that communication if they lose that funding.”
Republicans can afford to lose no more than three votes in the Senate to pass the legislation since all members of the Democratic caucus are expected to oppose it.
The White House’s strained attempts to cast their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cuts taxes for the mostly wealthy and slashes funding for Medicaid, as something that would reduce the deficit have been directly undermined by Musk. In a wild series of online posts last week, the Tesla CEO slammed Trump’s signature legislative goal as an “abomination” that would balloon the debt.
“A new spending bill should be drafted that doesn’t massively grow the deficit and increase the debt ceiling by 5 TRILLION DOLLARS,” Musk said in one post. In another post, Musk wrote, “Mammoth spending bills are bankrupting America! ENOUGH.”