President Trump today signed the bill that Congress passed last week rescinding $9 billion in previously approved funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting. The legislation codifies some cuts targeted by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. The cuts include about $1.1 billion over two years that was to go to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports NPR and PBS stations nationwide.
The White House and congressional Republicans have said additional requests to claw back funding will be coming. A second rescissions package is reportedly set to target the Department of Education. The administration continues to withhold billions of dollars in funding for schools, though it did say it was releasing about $1.3 billion in money for summer and afterschool programs.
Politico reports that House Speaker Mike Johnson recently told Republicans that the next package of proposed cuts will be smaller than the first. While fiscal hawks in the party are eager to see more cuts, some GOP lawmakers have expressed concerns about the rescissions, urging the White House to provide more specifics about which programs will be targeted. Some in the party have also acknowledged that the rescission requests complicate the annual process of funding the government by eroding whatever trust might still remain between Democratic and Republican appropriators.
White House budget director Russell Vought is also looking at so-called pocket rescissions — a strategy in which the White House would send a request to cancel funding shortly before the end of the fiscal year on September 30, leaving lawmakers less than the usual 45 days to consider the cuts. If Congress doesn’t act on the request, the funding would be canceled on October 1.