Trump asks Congress to slash $9.4 billion in first DOGE spending cut package
Spending cuts another test for narrow House GOP majority
Senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram joins ‘America’s Newsroom’ to discuss the future of DOGE after Elon Musk’s exit and the Trump administration’s spending reduction request after claims that additional spending would undermine cuts.
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The clock will soon start ticking away on Congress to consider President Donald Trump’s $9.4 billion request for federal spending cuts.
“Today, we have officially received the rescissions request from the White House to eliminate $9.4 billion in wasteful foreign aid spending at State and USAID and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. The House will act quickly on this request,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement Tuesday.
“This rescissions package reflects many of DOGE’s findings and is one of the many legislative tools Republicans are using to restore fiscal sanity. Congress will continue working closely with the White House to codify these recommendations, and the House will bring the package to the floor as quickly as possible.”
House and Senate Republicans now have 45 days to codify the funding reductions.
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Under President Donald Trump, the Elon Musk-led DOGE slashed billions in what it deemed as wasteful government spending. (Musk: Reuters / Money: iStock / Trump: Getty)
Trump is asking lawmakers to claw back federal funding from NPR, PBS and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). It’s the first of what could be several efforts by Congress to follow through on Elon Musk’s work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The proposal is called a rescissions package, a mechanism allowing the White House to weigh in on Congress’ yearly government appropriations process.
The process was created under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act as a way to stop the president from unilaterally acting on government funding while giving the executive some say over the spending – albeit with congressional approval.
House and Senate GOP leaders have pledged to work swiftly once they receive the White House’s request.
But lawmakers are also working up against another deadline, with Republicans hoping to finish Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax and immigration bill by July Fourth.
The tax bill is being passed under a separate fiscal mechanism called budget reconciliation, which allows Congress to amend areas they normally could not touch via the annual appropriations process.
But like reconciliation, rescissions allow the party in power to sidestep the minority by lowering the Senate’s threshold for passage to 51 instead of 60 votes. Rescissions debates are also capped at two hours in the House and 10 in the Senate.
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought told reporters after meeting with Johnson on Monday that more packages could be coming.
Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, met with Speaker Mike Johnson Monday. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
“I want to see if it passes. I think we’re very interested to make sure it passes both the House and the Senate, but we’re very open to sending multiple bills,” Vought said.
Paul Winfree, founder of the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), told Fox News Digital he believed the White House was using this first package as a test run to see how DOGE cuts could be achieved.
“This first rescissions package from President Trump is a test as to whether Congress has the ability to deliver on his mandate by canceling wasteful spending through a filibuster-proof process,” Winfree said.
“If they can’t, then it’s a signal for the president to turn up the dial with other tools at his disposal.”
And while a wide swath of Republicans is likely to coalesce around cuts to NPR, PBS and USAID – areas long targeted by fiscal conservatives – multiple people told Fox News Digital they could foresee some issues with the GOP’s razor-thin, three-seat House majority.
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The packages comes as Elon Musk’s time heading DOGE draws to a close. (AP/Evan Vucci)
“I get a sense that there will be some that don’t want an ad written that they’re defunding Big Bird,” one House Republican told Fox News Digital. “They’ve earned cancellation, but I mean, there are some moderates in our conference.”
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Meanwhile, conservative groups in the House are bearing down hard to get the bill passed.
Both the House Freedom Caucus and Republican Study Committee released statements pushing for the spending cuts to be passed as soon as possible.
The Freedom Caucus, whose position was first reported by Fox News Digital, called for the House to pass the bill as soon as this week.