Moving forward…
While Senate Republicans were ultimately successful in their mission to pass President Donald Trump’s clawback package, two Republicans sided with Democrats
Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) joined with every Senate Democrat to vote against the $9 billion package geared toward clawing back foreign aid and public broadcasting funding.
Fox News reports that Senate Republican leaders goal of $400 million in cuts to Bush-era international AIDS and HIV prevention funding could win over all the holdouts, both public and private.However, the Republican holdouts had deeper concerns about the level of transparency during the process and the impact successful rescissions could have on Congress’ power of the purse.
Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she agreed with rescissions in general and supports them during the appropriations process, but couldn’t get behind the White House’s push because of a lack of clarity from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) about exactly what would be cut and how.
She said that “the sparse text” sent to lawmakers included little detail and did not give a specific accounting of programs that would be cut to hit the original $9.4 billion target.
“For example, there are $2.5 billion in cuts to the Development Assistance account, which covers everything from basic education, to water and sanitation, to food security — but we don’t know how those programs will be affected,” she said.
The vote for the bill came hours after tsunami warnings rippled through Alaska, and Murkowski argued that federal warnings were relayed through local public broadcasting.
“The tsunami warnings are now thankfully canceled, but the warning to the U.S. Senate remains in effect,” she said. “Today of all days, we should vote down these misguided cuts to public broadcasting.”
