House Cuts Funding From NPR, PBS and Foreign Aid

House Republicans passed a bill defunding foreign aid and public broadcasting shortly after Midnight on Friday, in the first legislative codification of President Donald Trump’s cuts to discretionary spending.

“This isn’t the end, it’s the beginning,” wrote Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., after passage. “We look forward to passing additional rescissions bills throughout the 119th Congress.”

President Donald Trump cheered the passage on the social media platform Truth Social, writing, “REPUBLICANS HAVE TRIED DOING THIS FOR 40 YEARS AND FAILED….BUT NO MORE. THIS IS BIG!!!”

The rescissions package, which targets funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development as well as for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, was passed by a 216-213 margin. 

Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mike Turner of Ohio were the only Republicans to join all Democrats in voting down the bill.

Under law, a president can withhold funding for 45 days, at the end of which Congress must cut the funding or it will have to be spent. This gave Congress a July 18 deadline to pass the bill.

Republicans in the House passed a version of the bill which the Senate had amended to exclude cuts to PEPFAR, an AIDS prevention program. This brought cuts down from $9.4 billion to $9 billion.

Democrats were in complete opposition to the bill from the outset, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries calling it:

An attack on the public health of the American people, the national security of the American people, the public safety of the American people, and the ability of the American people to actually get information, particularly in rural America, that they may need through public radio or public television in the face of an emergency.

However, Republicans pushed back on the argument that these services are in any way necessary.

Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican who represents the Texas Hill Country area devastated by recent floods said Thursday, “It took NPR through Texas Public Radio 19 hours to post anything about the flooding on its social media… the seven private stations posted over 70 alerts on their social pages throughout the day… they were there for the people of Texas. They were there presenting the information necessary. And the public stations were completely MIA.”

The bill’s passage is likely to put wind in the sails of the White House’s advocacy of regular rescissions packages to pare down discretionary spending.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who has called for Congress to gain the “muscle memory” of using rescissions packages, said before the vote that “we’re on a path to making substantial moves this year to balance the budget and get us on that road.”

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