WASHINGTON — The House is set to vote on Thursday on a package to formalize about $9.4 billion in cuts made by President Donald Trump’s government downsizing campaign, known as the U.S. DOGE Service, on Thursday, Republican leaders said at a press conference on Tuesday. It comes amid signs of a few cracks in the broad support for the effort among the House GOP.
In the most vocal show of some skepticism, Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada on Monday issued a statement alongside Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York in which they warned about the impact, particularly on rural areas, of cutting federal funds for public broadcasting.
“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but their ability to continue offering free, high-quality programming would be eliminated if the federal funding is rescinded,” the lawmakers, who are co-chairs of the Public Broadcasting Caucus, wrote. “Rescinding this funding also would isolate rural communities, jeopardizing their access to vital resources they depend on.”
The pair called on the Trump administration to reconsider the cuts and went on to argue that taking away public broadcasting funding would not make a sizable dent in the national deficit, a priority of fiscal conservatives.
“Furthermore, public broadcasting represents less than 0.01% of the federal budget, yet its impact reaches every congressional district,” they wrote. “Cutting this funding will not meaningfully reduce the deficit, but it will dismantle a trusted source of information for millions of Americans.”
The legislation, known as a rescissions package, set for a vote this week would withdraw $9.4 billion in funding already previously approved by Congress. More than $8 billion pulls from the State Department and specifically foreign aid through USAID and another $1 billion comes out of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, slashing funding for NPR and PBS, which Trump has accused of being biased.
A new survey from the Pew Research Center found that 23% of Republicans said they trust PBS, while 26% distrust PBS. Democrats trust PBS by a 59% to 4% margin. When it comes to NPR, twice as many Republicans distrust NPR than trust it, while Democrats trust NPR by a 47% to 3% margin, according to the survey.
Another House Republican, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, meanwhile, expressed concerns over the package to the New York Times over cuts to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR.
At Tuesday’s press conference House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called the package a “critical step in restoring fiscal sanity.” He and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., repeatedly referred to it as the first step in formalizing DOGE cuts amid Republicans’ pledged broader effort to pare back the nation’s debt.
“This rescissions package is a critical step, and it's one of many, there will be several of these that will come from the White House and we’ll work together with the administration to cut out all the fraud, waste and abuse,” Johnson said. “We're fighting a multi-front war against the deficit.”
It comes as the Senate is currently in the process of reworking the House-passed version of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” as he calls it, which contains the president’s biggest legislative priorities, to get it across the finish line in the upper chamber. Leaders are contending with pushback from a select few Senate Republicans about the amount it would add to the national debt. Some others have expressed concerns over its impact on Medicaid.
If passed in the Senate, the bill would need to pass the House again before it can make it to Trump’s desk by Republicans’ self-imposed deadline of July 4th. Johnson has urged Senators not to change too much as to mess with the “delicate balance” in the House.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who once led Trump’s downsizing campaign, became one of the most notable critics of the bill, blasting the amount it will add to the deficit and accusing it of undermining DOGE. Trump and Musk subsequently had a high-profile falling out last week.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.