Two Republicans broke rank to oppose the president’s rescissions request.
Senate Republicans early Thursday greenlit President Donald Trump’s proposal to claw back billions in global health and public media funding, pushing past frustrations within the GOP conference about the White House’s transparency during the process.
The White House-requested spending cuts narrowly made it through the Senate in a 51-48 vote after GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted “no” alongside Democrats. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) missed the vote, with her staff disclosing Wednesday that she was being kept in the hospital overnight “out of an abundance of caution.”
Because Senate Republicans made changes to the legislation it will need to bounce back to the House, which is expected to vote on it later Thursday. Trump will need to sign the recissions bill by the end of Friday, otherwise he will be forced to spend the money Congress previously approved.
“What we are talking about is one-tenth of one percent of all federal spending … but it’s a step in the right direction and it’s the first time we have done anything like this in 35 years,” Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said early Thursday morning.
It marks the first time in decades that a rescissions package has been approved by the Senate. In 2018, the GOP-controlled chamber narrowly blocked a $15 billion request from Trump, after Collins and then-Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina opposed it.
Even though Trump was successful now, however, there was still plenty of drama. To help address a swath of GOP concerns, the administration agreed to drop a $400 million cut to the global AIDS fighting program, PEPFAR, from the original, $9.4 billion proposal. That brought the Senate GOP bill down to roughly $9 billion.
Republicans added language vowing that other areas related to food aid, maternal health, malaria and tuberculosis wouldn’t be impacted and that certain food assistance programs would be protected.The administration also privately vowed to move around other funding to help offset funding cuts to rural public news stations to win over Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D).