Late-night dramatics and surprise defections capped off the push to advance President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar clawback package through procedural hurdles, but now lawmakers are nearing the finish line.
Lawmakers cruised through hours of debate on Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package Wednesday morning and are now entering into another vote-a-rama, where both sides of the aisle can offer an unlimited number of amendments to the package.
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.
Like the preceding debate, Senate Democrats are expected to push numerous amendments intended to derail the legislation that are unlikely to succeed, but will drag out the process for several hours.
Ahead of the vote-a-rama, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats would highlight several areas of the bill that cut funding through the amendment process, and accused Republicans of having ‘no idea how the [Office of Management and Budget] plans to apply the cuts.’
‘Senate Democrats, however, know that our job in this chamber is to govern, is to legislate, not simply eat dirt from the executive and ask for more, which is unfortunately what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing,’ he said.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., fired back that Senate Democrats were doing nothing more than defending their penchant for wasteful government spending.
‘I’ve heard Democrats fearmonger about this bill. Let me set the record straight. Republicans are protecting emergency alert systems here at home,’ he said. ‘Democrats are protecting and promoting electric buses in Africa. In November, Americans rejected wasteful Washington spending. This week, Republicans are delivering on that mandate.’
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.’
McConnell similarly blamed the Office of Management and Budget, but noted that he might not be against the package when it came to a final vote.
‘I’m not going to predict where I am at the end, but I want to make it clear, I don’t have any problem with reducing spending,’ he said. ‘We’re talking about not knowing that they would like a blank check, is what they would like. I don’t think that’s appropriate. I think they ought to make the case.’