Senate Republicans are gearing up to advance a multibillion-dollar clawback package from President Donald Trump, but dissent among the ranks threatens to stymie the process.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., intends to put Trump’s $9.4 billion rescissions package, which would scrape back congressionally approved funding for a variety of so-called ‘woke’ programs that fund foreign aid and public broadcasting.
However, a handful of Senate Republicans have raised a fuss over $8.3 billion in cuts from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and over $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS.
The bill is expected to have its first test vote on Tuesday, but questions remain about whether Thune has the votes.
Senate Republicans are set to meet with Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, who became a near-constant presence on the Hill during the budget reconciliation process, in a bid to shore up support among concerned lawmakers.
Publicly, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, have expressed reservations about the package, particularly over proposed cuts to the Bush-era President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the public broadcasting fund.
Collins said she still had concerns about the bill, and was coy about whether she would support its advancement — when asked if she’d vote to move it along, she smiled as the Senate elevator door shut.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., was similarly concerned about the bill because of slashes to public broadcasting that could have negative effects on tribal radio stations in rural areas, but he moved to back the bill after getting guarantees that roughly $10 million in Green New Deal money could be shifted to help pay for grants to keep the stations afloat.
However, he was unsure if there was enough support to move the bill through its first test.
‘I don’t have a head count on it, but my concerns have been taken care of,’ he said.
And there are more lawmakers who have privately expressed their hangups about the bill. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said that there were ‘several members’ who have raised issue with the package, and he too would like more information on the inner workings of the spending cuts.
‘It’s important that we succeed on this package, because I hope this is just a warm-up for what should be tens of billions of dollars worth of rescission,’ he said.
Thune can only afford to lose three votes and will receive no help from Senate Democrats in another hyper-partisan process.
An amendment process coming in the form of another vote-a-rama is expected, but changing the bill could have consequences in the House, where Republicans are warning their colleagues in the upper chamber to stomach the clawbacks as proposed by the White House.
Thune said he and his leadership team have been discussing issues with the package and trying to make possible changes to the legislation before it hits the floor.
‘I’m fine with it as is, but I think we have colleagues who would like to see some perhaps modest changes made, so we’re trying to find out if there’s a path forward that gets us 51 and stays consistent,’ he told reporters.