Authored by Jackson Richman & Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The House of Representatives passed a bill on June 12 to rescind $9.4 billion in federal spending.
Introduced by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), it passed 214–212.
It now goes to the Senate, where it will likely pass along party lines. As in the House, only a majority will be needed to pass it because it is not subject to the 60-vote filibuster threshold.
The seven-page bill eliminates funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It also rescinds $15 million from the Institute of Peace and $22 million from the African Development Foundation.
Additionally, it scales back billions of dollars in economic assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The bill also codifies some of the cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was led by Elon Musk. DOGE has saved taxpayers $180 billion, or more than $1,118 per taxpayer, according to its website.
The legislation was sent last week to Congress by the White House in accordance with the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Congress has 45 days to approve such requests.
The House Rules Committee advanced the bill to the floor on June 10, 8–4.
“President [Donald] Trump and congressional Republicans campaigned on attacking wasteful spending,” the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), said. “So the new administration ... then found wasteful spending. President Trump then acted and recommended that these funds be permanently canceled. I cannot think of a more textbook scenario of the proper utilization of this process.”
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the committee’s ranking member, disagreed.
He said the bill does not eliminate “waste or fraud or abuse.”
“It’s gutting essential services that people rely on, gutting programs that save lives,” he said.
He cited the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which seeks to eliminate HIV and AIDS worldwide, as an example.
“This program alone has saved 26 million people from dying of HIV, and enabled more than 8 million babies to be born HIV-free,” McGovern said. “There are now tens of millions of people on lifesaving treatment with PEPFAR accounting for over 90 percent of preventative treatments around the world. Your bill pulls the rug from under this program and caps 20 years of virus progress.”
Ahead of the vote, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) criticized the package as “reckless” and predicted that every Republican would vote for it.
“It’s going to undermine America’s national security, hurt our ability to protect the American people in terms of their health, their safety and their well-being, including by going after a George W. Bush bipartisan initiative that has saved thousands, actually hundreds of thousands, actually millions of lives across the world by combating the HIV and AIDS crisis,” he said, referring to PEPFAR.
Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.) told The Epoch Times that the PEPFAR matter is “not an issue.”
“Reports of it affecting that are not true,” he said.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) told The Epoch Times that the criticism over it possibly affecting PEPFAR is “saber-rattling.”