WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (TX-19) voted in favor of H.R.4, a rescissions package requested by President Trump to cut $9.4 billion – including cuts to USAID, NPR, and PBS – to codify cuts identified by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and deliver on the promise of rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.
“President Trump continues to deliver on his promise to cut wasteful Washington spending and get our nation’s fiscal house in order.
“This $9.4 billion rescissions package is part of Republicans’ plan to right-size our bloated bureaucracy, root out woke programs, and rein-in reckless spending.
“Every dollar we spend on woke and wasteful federal programs is a dollar we steal from our children’s future. We must get serious about returning to fiscal discipline and limiting the scope and scale of the federal government. It’s as much of a threat to our freedoms as it is our prosperity.
“The federal government has no business subsidizing multimedia platforms and supporting the politically biased commentary of both NPR and PBS. State-sponsored media is a feature of authoritarian regimes, not free societies.
“USAID has been used as a tool by Democrats and the Radical Left to advance their ridiculous and divisive DEI and Green New Deal agendas.
“President Trump and House Republicans are sending a clear message: the era of a woke, wasteful, and weaponized federal government is over.
“Today’s rescissions package is about stewarding tax dollars, holding bureaucrats accountable, and restoring fiscal responsibility and confidence in the People’s government.” – House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (TX-19)
BACKGROUND:
- Under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), the Administration may transmit a request to Congress to rescind previously appropriated funds through a rescissions package. Such a package only requires a simple majority vote in the Senate to be enacted.
- Hill Republicans have been requesting a rescissions package to codify DOGE cuts. In collaboration with House and Senate Leadership, the Administration has assembled a package that totals $9.4 billion. This includes a rescission of $8.3 billion in wasteful foreign aid spending and a $1.1 billion recission of Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
- Transmittal of a package triggers a 45-day clock, during which funds in accounts included in the rescissions package are withheld from agencies pending congressional action.
EXAMPLES OF WHAT THESE CUTS FUNDED:
CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING
- NPR's CEO, Katherine Maher, called President Trump a "fascist" and "deranged racist"
- PBS programming includes "Real Boy," a program about a trans teen, and "Our League" about a trans woman returning to her hometown
- NPR requested and received a $1.9 million grant commitment from CPB to hire more "moderate" Editors and journalists, as they recognized their complete leftist bias
WOKE AND WEAPONIZED FOREIGN AID
- $167,000 for free education and healthcare to Ecuadorian and Venezuelan migrants
- $889,000 for electoral reforms and voter education in Kenya
- $1 million for voter ID in Haiti
- $33,000 for "Being LGBTI in the Caribbean"
- $643,000 for LGBTQI+ programs in the Western Balkans
- $567,000for LBGTQI+ programs in Uganda
- $8,000 for promoting vegan food in Zambia
- $500,000 for electric busses in Rwanda
- $4 million for legume systems research
- $67,000 for feeding insect powder to children in Madagascar
- $6 million for "Net Zero Cities" in Mexico
- $3 million for Iraqi Sesame Street
- $4 million for "sedentary migrants" in Colombia
- $1 million for programs to strengthen the resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer global movements
- $6 million for supporting media organizations and civic life of Palestinians
- $2.5 million for teaching young children how to make environmentally friendly "reproductive health" decisions
- $3 million for sexual reproductive health in Venezuela
- $2.1 million for climate resilience in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and East Africa
- Programs that prop up woke climate change programs for U.S. universities
- $614,700 for climate adaptation, including to grow coral reefs in the Caribbean
- $135 million in contributions to the World Health Organization (WHO)
- $8 million for the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)
- $158 million from the Lebanon Peacekeeping Mission (UNIFIL), which has been fraught with waste and abuse, as evidenced by its abject failure to contain Hezbollah
- $142 million from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF)
- $83 million from the UN Development Program (UNDP)
- $33 million from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
- $130 million from other IOP programs, which includes programs like UN Women, UN Panel on Climate Change, Int'l Conservation Programs, etc.
PEPFAR RESCISSIONS:
- $3 million for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia
- $5.1 million to strengthen the "resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer global movements"
- $833,000 for services for "transgender people, sex workers and their clients and sexual networks" in Nepal
THE UNITED STATES INSITUTE OF PEACE
The President’s Executive Order (14217) eliminated the USIP.
- $1.2 million for the "Afrobarometer public opinion survey."
- $100,000 for Harvard to conduct research models for peace
- $77,000 for University of Denver for "Escaping the Ethnic Trap in Deeply Divided Societies."
UNITED STATES AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION
The President’s Executive Order (14217) eliminated the USADF
- Programs such as graphic design training in Nigeria
- "African Hive Camping and Tours" to create adventure trips for backpackers
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