WASHINGTON, DC — Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought said he is confident the 9.4 billion rescissions package to codify DOGE cuts to PBS, NPR, and USAID will pass Congress.
Vought spoke to reporters outside the West Wing on Friday morning, ahead of President Donald Trump’s departure to Kerrville, Texas, to meet with first responders, families affected by the flood, and local officials.
When asked if he was confident the package would get through Congress, Vought said he is:
“We had a great vote in the House. We have a second vote next week. I am confident that they will pass the bill. I’ll be up there on Tuesday to answer any additional questions,” Vought said.
Vought said the package is $9.4 billion because the administration wants to see how serious members of Congress are about enacting DOGE cuts.
“The President put out a great Truth Social last night, the extent to which we have been talking in this town as conservatives, as Republicans, about defunding corporations for public broadcasting for a very long time,” Vought said.
“We are now on the verge of being able to do that, and it’s important that we finally take that opportunity and not fall back on kind of the tired old excuses that have defended that program for so long,” he added.
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Breitbart News asked the director what Trump supporters around the country can do to help pass the package, given that many of them want to see cuts to wasteful spending:
Well, look, we have a great opportunity on the Hill next week with regard to this $9.4 billion package, it’s only $9.4 billion… Why is it only $9.4 billion? It’s that because we know how close of a vote it was in the House, and we know we have a tight margin in the Senate, but that that margin has to produce a victory.
The package passed the House by a vote of 214-212 in June.
He emphasized that there are other rescission packages lined up if the forthcoming vote on the $9.4 billion package yields a good result.
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Vought also recalled that Democrats and Republican senators highlighted during his confirmation process that he has the authority to use rescission packages under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, yet some are now saying using the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) is a sort of renegotiation of the appropriations process:
You know, when I went through confirmation, people said, ‘Well, Russ, you have an impound and control act.’ They knew that we were skeptics of it. We’re not huge fans of it, but they said there’s a process for it, for using it. These were Democrats, these were Republicans that were on the Appropriations Committee. They said, ‘Why wouldn’t you use the rescissions package approach?’ Well, we’re doing that, we’re sending bills up on that. And now we hear an argument that if you use tools that are outlined in the ICA, that somehow you’re renegotiating the appropriations process or any agreement. That’s the kind of thinking, the arguments that have caused us to never make any progress in this town.
Vought said the vote next week could serve “a huge pivot point in how this town does business, and will be an exciting milestone to be able to make actual permanent reductions to some of these savings that we’ve identified as an administration.”
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