House passes to Trump’s $9bn cut to public broadcasting, foreign aid

Washington: The House gave final approval to President Donald Trump’s request to claw back about USD 9 billion for public broadcasting and foreign aid early Friday as Republicans intensified their efforts to target institutions and programmes they view as bloated or out of step with their agenda.

The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won’t be the last. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda.

The House passed the bill by a vote of 216-213. It now goes to Trump for his signature.

“We need to get back to fiscal sanity and this is an important step,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. Opponents voiced concerns not only about the programmes targeted, but about Congress ceding its spending powers to the executive branch as investments approved on a bipartisan basis were being subsequently cancelled on party-line votes. They said previous rescission efforts had at least some bipartisan buy-in and described the Republican package as unprecedented.

No Democrats supported the measure when it passed the Senate, 51-48, in the early morning hours Thursday. Final passage in the House was delayed for several hours as Republicans wrestled with their response to Democrats’ push for a vote on the release of Jeffrey Epstein files.

The package cancels about USD 1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and nearly USD 8 billion for a variety of foreign aid programmes, many designed to help countries where drought, disease and political unrest endure. The effort to claw back a sliver of federal spending came just weeks after Republicans also muscled through Trump’s tax and spending cut bill without any Democratic support. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that measure will increase the US debt by about USD 3.3 trillion over the coming decade.

“No one is buying the the notion that Republicans are actually trying to improve wasteful spending,” said Democratic leader

Hakeem Jeffries.