By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives said on Wednesday they would act quickly on President Donald Trump’s request to slash $9.4 billion in spending on foreign aid and public broadcasting, hoping to file a bill as soon as Thursday.
“Yesterday the White House sent the rescissions package. It’s the first, maybe, of many. We are now putting that in bill format. We’ll file that bill, hopefully by tomorrow, and then bring it up to the floor quickly,” Representative Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, told a news conference.
Scalise spoke a day after Trump sent Congress his formal “rescissions” memo requesting the elimination of $9.4 billion in spending already approved by lawmakers, opening a 45-day window for lawmakers to decide whether to back Trump in overturning spending plans many of them voted for in the past.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Scalise and other Republican House leaders issued a statement encouraging House members to support the measure, saying it would eliminate wasteful spending.
Presidential rescissions packages have not passed in years, because previous Congresses have not wanted to give up their constitutionally mandated control of government spending. For example, lawmakers rejected Trump’s request to revoke $15 billion in spending in 2018, during his first term.
However, the current Republican leaders of the House and Senate have shown little appetite for opposing Trump, even those who in the past have been strong advocates for foreign aid. The rescissions package can pass with a simple majority in both chambers, so it would not need Democratic votes.
Codifying the cuts into law will lessen the chances that reductions in government spending, which have been led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) this year, will face legal challenges.
Trump began slashing foreign assistance programs as soon as he began his second term on January 20, in his drive to ensure all government spending is in line with his America First policies, eliminate waste and stamp out “diversity, equity and inclusion” efforts.
Critics have said the deep cuts in funding by the United States, the world’s largest single donor, mean people around the world will die of starvation and from preventable diseases, undermine American leadership, and leave a vacuum for adversaries like Russia and China to fill.
Trump himself said last month his administration’s cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development have been “devastating.”
The cuts include rescinding $496 million of the $4 billion Congress approved for international disaster assistance, $460 million appropriated to assist former communist countries in Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia; $400 million of $6 billion for global health programs like fighting HIV/AIDS, and $142 million designated for UNICEF, the United Nations’ children’s fund.
The package also includes $1.1 billion in cuts to funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; additional reporting by Katharine Jackson;Editing by Marguerita Choy)
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