The GOP’s effort to eliminate billions of dollars in federal funding faces an uphill battle in the House this week, as a handful of Republicans balk at various provisions in the legislation.
Some of those Republicans are voicing doubts about specific portions of the White House’s request to claw back $9.4 billion — known as a rescissions package — which would lock in cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) targeting the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Others are expressing concerns that the rescissions process would undermine Congress’s authority to allocate funding.
One House Republican, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, estimated around 10 lawmakers have voiced concerns about the bill, but “there’s more concerns than people who have whipped ‘no.’”
“And I think it’s a broader concern about the rescissions process itself,” the lawmaker added.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — under heavy pressure from hard-line conservatives eager to codify the DOGE cuts — is aiming to approve the bill in the coming days, setting the stage for another complicated week for GOP leaders.
One of the largest concerns Republicans have with the package is the $1.1 billion in rescissions to the Corporation for Public Broadcast, which helps fund NPR and PBS. Republicans have panned the outlets as biased, and President Trump signed an executive order in May to cease federal funding for both companies.
But a handful of Republicans are worried about the impact the slashes will have in their districts.
Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) — an appropriations cardinal and the co-chair of the Public Broadcasting Caucus — released a statement with Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), his counterpart in the group, encouraging the Trump administration to rethink its clawback of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
“From coast to coast, Americans rely on public broadcasting for lifesaving emergency alerts, trusted news, and coverage on key issues that connects communities across our nation,” the pair wrote.
“Our local stations are dedicated to serving their communities, but their ability to continue offering free, high-quality programming would be eliminated if the federal funding is rescinded,” they added. “Rescinding this funding also would isolate rural communities, jeopardizing their access to vital resources they depend on.”
Other Republicans are investigating the cuts to USAID, which was one of DOGE’s first targets. The package would slash $8.3 billion in foreign aid, with much of that including dollars approved for USAID.
“Those are the areas we want to make sure we’re doing the right things,” Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) said when asked about cuts to public broadcasting and USAID. “That’s where we’re getting more information.”
The House Republican granted anonymity told The Hill that some lawmakers are also concerned that the rescissions package undermines Congress’s authority given that the funding has already been approved by both chambers.
“I think there’s two major concerns: One is that this is top lines and not specifics so it is undermining Congress’s authority, and two, there’s concerns about some the potential cuts that people have, and that’s what we’re working through,” the lawmaker said.
The Speaker did receive one piece of good news this week: Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) appeared closer to voting for the bill after expressing reservations with the measure. The congressman warned last week that he would not vote for the bill if it completely gutted the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which the package targets.
But on Tuesday, he said the slashes were satisfactory.
“I enjoyed the discussion we had about PEPFAR: They’re cutting about 8 percent and they’re not cutting the medical side of it, the medicine side, so I feel better than what I was hearing last week that it was going to be a total cut,” he told reporters.
The moderate Republican, however, would not disclose how he plans to vote, saying he was keeping his cards close to the vest.
“[I] feel better about that,” Bacon said, referring to the clarifications he got on the PEPFAR cuts, “but I’m going to work with some of my colleagues on the PBS, NPR stuff, and I’ll leave it at that for the time being.”
Despite those qualms, House GOP leaders are plowing ahead with the effort. The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet on the bill Tuesday afternoon, teeing up a vote for later in the week. With Democrats expected to oppose the package in unison, Republicans can only afford to lose three votes and still nudge the measure over the finish line — meaning Johnson will need near unanimity in his ranks.
“These are commonsense cuts, and I think every member of this body should support it,” Johnson said at a press conference Tuesday morning. “It’s a critical step in restoring fiscal sanity and beginning to turn the tides of removing waste, fraud and abuse from our governments.”
The rescissions bill is the first in what Johnson is forecasting will be a string of packages codifying the cuts made by DOGE. The initial effort comes just days after the heated blowup between Trump and Elon Musk, whose brainchild was DOGE.
House GOP leaders, meanwhile, are openly recognizing the unfamiliar terrain they are traversing. Both chambers of Congress have not approved a rescissions package in decades, leaving little precedent to call on for the current moment.
“We haven’t done anything like this in a while, so this is probably, in some ways, a test run,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters last week.
As the vote nears, several Republicans are keeping their opinions quiet, wary to come out publicly against the package that the White House has proposed and conservatives are itching to pass.
“The public broadcasting [provisions] for sure [give me pause],” Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.), who flipped a blue district red in November, said Tuesday. “But again, I haven’t seen the actual numerical percentage value of what would actually decrease funding in which capacities, so I haven’t really made a decision yet.”
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