America's Talking - $9.4B Rescissions Package Narrowly Passes House, Cutting Foreign Aid

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

(The Center Square) – The House barely passed a controversial rescissions package Thursday, pulling billions in already allocated federal funding from multiple foreign aid and public broadcasting programs. The Rescissions Act of 2025, compiled by the Office of Management and Budget, cancels $9.4 billion, including $8.3 billion for non-life saving foreign assistance and $1.1 billion for public broadcasting systems. Six Republicans initially opposed the package, endangering the bill’s passage since all Democrats present voted against it. But two of the holdouts — Reps. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., and Don Bacon, R-Neb., — flipped their votes last-minute, making the final vote 214-212.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_d72c2dd9-abd6-4410-a9ef-58a408cffc02.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire service. Progress continues to be made on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that passed the U.S. House last month. The Budget Reconciliation Bill is working its way through the Senate with a self-imposed July 4th deadline for final passage. Joining me to discuss developments on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is Terez-Budrow, Congressional Reporter for the Center Square. there have been several developments this week. Where would you like to start? Yeah, thanks for having me, Dan. So this week, one of the main developments was that the House leaders realized that a couple of the, not a couple, more like 20 of the provisions, relatively minor things in the bill, violated a rule in the Senate called the Bird Rule, which basically allows them to use the privileges of the budget reconciliation process. if the things in the bill violate the bird rule, then they can't pass it with just a majority of votes in the Senate, which is huge, obviously, because this is a massive policy mega bill implementing a bunch of Trump's defense and border and especially tax priorities, including extending the 2017 tax cuts for at least the next 10 years. So today is Friday. And on Thursday, the House passed a bill in the

a very interesting way. They kind of tucked it into a different bill, but it basically repealed about 20 provisions, not super important. One of them had to do with Pentagon funding, like an extra something for intelligence. But so they passed that. They rescinded those things. And so now it's up to the Senate to add their portions to the one big, beautiful bill. And so that's kind of where everyone's looking now. And as soon as today, even, the Senate Finance Committee could release their text. And so what we're looking for with the Senate, they could do a lot of things. But a lot of senators, especially Senate leaders, they are wary of changes at the House version of the one big beautiful bill made to Medicaid. So for instance, imposing work requirements. And this

could potentially lead to able-bodied single adults who are currently on Medicaid. and not working to be kicked off if they decide not to work. And other things, there's also some phase outs of the Inflation Reduction Act, Renewable Energy credits that there are some senators who their states rely on. And so they're also worried about that. So Republicans are very divided. So there's many things that the, that the Senate could change. But those are two of the things. And then most importantly, the Senate really wants to make a lot of a tax credits, Most budget reconciliation bills deal with a period of around 10 years, and that's what the House's bill. Their one big, beautiful bill, as it currently is, does as it extends the tax cuts for 10 years.

But the Senate wants more. The problem with that is that that, according to most budget organizations, will cost a lot, trillions of dollars, in fact. And so they have to find some kind of way to offset that, which is even more difficult if they are against these. spending reductions in Medicaid and these phaseouts of the green energy tax credits, because that kind of offered a little bit of offsetting some of the cost. So yeah, it's going to the next week, there's going to be a lot coming out. And, you know, it's going to be tricky because if the Senate changes too much to try to get enough votes for the upper chamber, then a bunch of the a bunch of Republicans in the in the house could revolt, especially if the Senate also if they,

if they touch the state and local tax deduction cap or salt, which the House, they raised that cap in their portion of the bill, but there are no Republican senators who like that. And also, again, it can add to the bill's cost if we're up, if we're taking budget organizations' estimates. So it is really complicated. And it's one of those things. where Johnson, House Speaker Mike Johnson, achieve this delicate balance. And he's just kind of holding his breathy and others because, again, the Senate changes just a little bit too much, then they're probably not going to make that July 4th deadline. Let's just briefly go back to the rescission package that passed out of the House very narrowly on Thursday.

Terrez. President Donald Trump, he created the Department of Government efficiency, looking to cut hundreds of billions up to a trillion dollars in spending from the federal government. But a lot of courts have blocked those cuts because Congress had approved these spending measures. Was the Precision Act meant to codify some of those cuts? Yes. So House Speaker Mike Johnson actually told reporters that this was the, quote, first of many recisions packages. This one rescinded $9.4 billion. from, mostly from different foreign aid programs or grants. And then it also rescinded funding for some public broadcast services. So basically taxpayer subsidized and what the Trump administration

calls politically biased news organizations. And so it was a very narrow passage in the House because some Republicans were worried that the cuts to foreign aid could affect. PEPFAR, which is the program that the U.S. has that combats AIDS and HIV globally. Secretary Tate-Marco Rubio has said that it won't affect, it won't affect PEPFAR. So, you know, see what happens there since it did pass the House. And like the budget reconciliation bill, it only needs a majority vote to pass in the Senate. So if that does pass and the $9.4 billion and already allocated funding is repealed, that will be the first codification of doge cuts that we have seen.

And I think if that happens, we can expect to see, as Johnson said, more of those packages coming in as well. In the few seconds we have remaining, Terese, it's June 13th, July 4th is not that long away. there are enough time to get this done by the Republican self-imposed deadline? I mean, again, if they all work together, then yes. That is the question, right? Because there are so many different demands coming from so many different Republicans. And even though Republicans do have majorities in both chambers, they're slim, right? They're slim and there are multiple factions.

So, yes, it is possible, but it's going to require a lot of compromise. and we'll just have to see whether those happen. Thank you for joining us today, Jerez. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at DeCentersquare.com.