With three Republican senators opposing a bill to cut $9 billion in previously approved spending, Vice President J.D. Vance delivered tie-breaking votes on Tuesday to keep the bill moving forward.
The 51-50 procedural votes saw Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Susan Collins of Maine voting against the bill, according to Politico.
As the Senate moves ahead with debate, it has one eye on the clock. If Congress does not get the rescissions bill to President Donald Trump by Friday, the foreign aid and public broadcasting money Trump wanted to cut will be released to the agencies.
Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri, the bill’s sponsor, said this bill is a test of whether senators really want to cut waste.
“While the actual American people are working long hours to afford groceries and gas, their government has been writing checks to left-wing propaganda outlets and spending billions overseas on countries that hate us,” he said, according to The Washington Post.
In the big picture, the bill cuts about $8 billion for foreign aid and $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Senators restored a $400 million cut to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which the White House will not oppose, according to The New York Times.
Mostly, senators who voted against the package said they should be deciding what’s in the bill, not the White House.
“We’re lawmakers; we should be legislating,” Murkowski said.
Should all Republicans be voting in support of this measure?
“What we’re getting now is a direction from the White House and being told, ‘This is the priority. We want you to execute on it. We’ll be back with you with another round.’ I don’t accept that,” she said.
Collins also said the she wants to know what budget lines could be cut.
“The rescissions package has a big problem — nobody really knows what program reductions are in it,” she said.
“That isn’t because we haven’t had time to review the bill. Instead, the problem is that O.M.B. has never provided the details that would normally be part of this process,” she said, referring to the Office of Management and Budget.
Collins said, she understands “the need to reduce excessive spending.”
“But to carry out our constitutional responsibility, we should know exactly what programs are affected and the consequences of rescissions.”
McConnell shared similar thoughts, according to Politico.
“OMB is the problem. They won’t tell us how they’re going to apply the cut,” McConnell said. “I want to make it clear I don’t have any problem with reducing spending. … They would like a blank check is what they would like, and I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
But too much Senate tinkering could impact its final passage.
“If they’re watering down too much, I’m not sure it moves,” Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said. “But if you get any of the rescissions that survive, they are still rescissions. But we’ll see what the Senate does.”
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