A $9 billion package of federal spending cuts aimed at public broadcasting and overseas aid was passed by the U.S. Senate early Thursday morning in yet another sweeping legislative victory for President Donald Trump.
The Financial Times reports broadcasting institutions NPR and PBS would lose their flow of taxpayer dollars when the package, which the Republican-led Senate approved after 2 a.m. by 51 votes to 48, is signed into law.
The bill also shuts off funding for foreign aid grants for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) once final approval by the House of Representatives is given after a vote due this week. The legislation must pass by a Friday deadline.
NPR and PBS have long been positioned as staunch left-wing opponents to the Republican agenda even as Trump vowed to deliver on his promise to drain the swamp in Washington, DC, and embrace fiscal sanity over a never-ending flow of taxpayer funds to public institutions.
The bill embraces sweeping cuts of up to $8 billion in foreign aid including to global health programs, migration and refugee assistance alongside international disaster relief.
GOP leaders said the vote was a symbolic victory that underscored the Republican-held Congress’s willingness to cut federal spending they viewed as inappropriate and wasteful.
It also affirmed Trump’s vision for America as free of the hidebound restrictions imposed by unaccountable, quasi-government departments.
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“It’s a small but important step toward fiscal sanity that we all should be able to agree is long overdue,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said before the final vote.
Thune was able to get Trump’s rescissions bill over the finish line even though two senior Republicans on the Appropriations Committee voted “no.”
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