WASHINGTON — Last week, Republicans passed a massive package of tax cuts that is projected to explode the national debt by $4 trillion to $6 trillion over the next decade.
This week, they went back to complaining about deficits almost as if nothing had happened.
Senate Republican leaders are hoping to pass a Trump administration rescission bill next week clawing back $9.4 billion in previously enacted federal funding for humanitarian aid, international development, public health and public broadcasting, including funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. If approved, it would codify some cuts made unilaterally by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year.
“If, after all the tough talk by we Republicans in the Senate about the need to reduce spending, if we can’t agree to reduce $9 billion worth of spending porn, then we all ought to go buy paper bags and put them over our heads,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told reporters on Capitol Hill, urging some of his skeptical colleagues to rally behind the legislation.
“The U.S. just passed $37 trillion in national debt and is already well on its way to $38 trillion,” Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) added in a social media post. “Yet, the Senate is having issues passing a measly $9.4 billion in rescissions? No wonder we are where we are today.”
“Washington is ADDICTED to spending YOUR hard-earned money,” he added.
Self was one of 218 House Republicans who voted for President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” despite calling it “morally and fiscally bankrupt” just days earlier. He was one of several House Freedom Caucus members who flip-flopped on the legislation despite its massive increases to budget deficits and $5 trillion increase in the statutory borrowing limit.
The lawmaker later explained he was satisfied by commitments he received from Trump to tackle the deficit in the coming months, including by approving rescission bills like the ones the Senate is considering that would cancel prior spending approved by Congress.
While typically 60 votes are required to pass legislation in the Senate, rescissions only require a simple majority, or 51 votes. The House narrowly approved the $9.4 billion package last month. The bill is privileged under the law, and the Senate must vote on it by next week.
Some Republican senators have expressed concerns with the bill. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has objected to its cuts to funding for PEPFAR, a George W. Bush administration initiative that has helped poorer nations combat HIV and AIDS and is credited with saving millions of lives around the globe.
“I cannot support the cuts that are so deep and so damaging in global health programs,” Collins told White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought during a Senate hearing last month.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), meanwhile, said he wants to see changes to the bill, particularly on its cuts to public broadcasting, before he can support it. The senator explained that many rural communities depend on public broadcasting funding to get their news and emergency alerts, drawing a distinction between that use and funding for NPR and PBS, which conservatives accuse of having a liberal bias. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has expressed similar concerns about the public broadcasting cuts.
Republican leaders cannot lose more than three votes in the Senate to send the bill to Trump’s desk since all Democrats are expected to oppose the measure. Senators will also have a chance to amend the bill on the floor.
“I assume there’ll be people who will offer amendments, and they’ll probably get votes,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Wednesday.
Canceling $9.4 billion in spending already approved by Congress for the next fiscal year is a far cry from the goal set out by Tesla CEO Elon Musk of $2 trillion in budget savings during last year’s presidential campaign. The world’s richest man has since fallen out with Trump and much of the GOP after slamming their tax cut legislation as an “abomination” because of the way it would balloon the debt over the next 10 years.
“What’s the point of DOGE if the government’s just going to add $5 trillion more in debt?” Musk wrote in a post over the weekend.
Fiscal hawks in the Senate agreed with Musk about the need for more spending cuts, but they expressed hope about passing more rescissions in the coming months. They also said that moving a second reconciliation bill this year would give them another bite at the apple.
“Nine billion [dollars] is a small rounding error, but it’s a start,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Wednesday.
Democrats slammed Republicans for pushing a rescissions bill eliminating critical funding for vulnerable people worldwide, warning it would “poison” any bipartisan goodwill needed to negotiate legislation funding the government this year.
What incentive, they asked, do Democrats have to negotiate deals on spending that require their votes to pass in the Senate if Republicans are going to simply turn around later and cancel funding they don’t like via a partisan process that requires only 51 votes?
“It is absurd to expect Democrats to play along with funding the government if Republicans are just going to renege on a bipartisan agreement by concocting rescissions packages behind closed doors that can pass with only their votes, not the customary 60 votes required in the appropriation process,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor.
Schumer caught a lot of flak from within his party for backing down from a fight over government funding in March. He’ll be under even more pressure to stand up to Trump and congressional Republicans this time around.
Even some Republicans acknowledged that the GOP’s rescissions moves threaten to upend the appropriations process, increasing the threat of a government shutdown when funding lapses in September.
“If you do appropriations in the Senate, you have 60 votes to support it. If you do rescissions, you can take it back with 50, which then makes it tougher to get a bipartisan agreement on an appropriations package,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Wednesday. “We are aware of the sensitivities of using a rescissions package versus the appropriations process.”