The 51-48 vote came after 2 a.m. Thursday after Democrats sought to remove many of the proposed rescissions during 12 hours of amendment votes. None of the Democratic amendments were adopted.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Republicans were using the president’s rescissions request to target wasteful spending. He said it is a “small but important step for fiscal sanity that we all should be able to agree is long overdue.”
But Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the bill “has a big problem — nobody really knows what program reductions are in it.”
Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, joined Democrats in voting against the legislation. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former Republican leader, had voted against moving forward with the bill in a Tuesday procedural vote, saying he was concerned the Trump White House wanted a “blank check," but he ultimately voted for final passage.
Along with Democrats, Collins and Murkowski both expressed concerns about the cuts to public broadcasting, saying they could affect important rural stations in their states.
