The passage represents another victory for Trump, after Congress recently passed and the president signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The House of Representatives on July 17 passed a revised $9 billion rescissions package, sending the measure to President Donald Trump for his signature.
The tally was 216–213, with two Republicans—Reps. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.)—voting against the bill.
The passage represents another legislative victory for Trump, following Congress earlier this month passing and the president signing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that included, among numerous things, making the 2017 individual tax cuts permanent.
The rescissions package, which the Senate passed early on Thursday morning, includes $9 billion in cuts identified by the Department of Government Efficiency, part of Republicans’ 2024 promises to reduce federal government spending by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.
The bill includes $1.1 billion in funding cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for two years, affecting NPR, PBS and their member stations. It fulfills a campaign promise by Trump to end federal support for the outlets.
Republicans accused both outlets of being biased in favor of liberal positions.
Historically, rescissions bills using the process laid out in the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 have passed the House easily but floundered in the Senate. Even with the trimming down of cuts to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in the package, the Thursday morning passage of the legislation represents one of the largest rescissions ever authorized under the process by the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said the bill exemplifies the GOP’s goal of ensuring fiscal responsibility.
“There has been a renewed commitment to reducing spending. It’s actually become in favor to try and find ways to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government,” he told reporters on July 15.
Closely attached to the bill’s passage was another push by House Democrats to force the release of files related to billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation involving minors.
A Republican resolution sponsored by Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) was approved by the House Rules Committee alongside the spending cuts package. Norman’s nonbinding resolution orders the release of files on Epstein’s case and requires the Department of Justice to give Congress “a list of all government officials and politically exposed persons named in the released materials” within 15 days.
Democrats, led by House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), criticized the resolution for being nonbinding and pushed for the adoption of a resolution to release the files “with the force of law.”
