President Donald Trump’s recissions package – his effort to claw back money previously allocated – faces a Friday deadline in the upper chamber. The package passed the House of Representatives with a party-line vote of 214-212 on June 12.
If the Republican-led Senate can’t pass the measure, it fails, and current funding levels remain in place.
“DOGE has found like $2 trillion of waste, fraud and abuse over the last 20-something years, $190 billion of cuts they’d like to make through wasted contracts and NGO grants. So, this is a chance for Republicans to stand up and do what we said we were going to do. Surely, 50 of us can do the right thing,” pleaded Kansas Senator Roger Marshall to his colleagues on Monday.
The Senate has the chance to deliver a second big win this week for the Trump administration as it tries to distance itself from the story of Jeffrey Epstein’s files.
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump can move forward with layoffs of almost 1,400 Department of Education (DOE) employees. Dismantling the DOE was one of Trump’s biggest campaign promises. It stalled with an earlier injunction issued from Boston-based U.S. District Court Myong Joun. The High Court reversed Joun’s order.
Trump hailed the Court’s reversal as a “major victory” for parents and students, a move that gives states more authority in the education process.
On the clock again
The recissions package marks the second time this month that a major part of Trump’s agenda is on the clock.
He encouraged lawmakers to get his “Big Beautiful Bill” through Congress before July 4. They responded, and he signed the bill into law on Independence Day.
A Senate setback would be a tough pill to swallow.
Mass protests erupted in the spring with demonstrations outside the Treasury and other federal office buildings as cuts were announced. More than 17 lawsuits were filed by unions, watchdog groups and employee associations challenging DOGE’s authority.
Now Senate leadership must convince some of its own to be team players. Assuming no Democrat votes in favor of recissions, Republicans can lose no more than four votes. That scenario would have Vice President J.D. Vance casting a tie-breaking vote.
GOP senators Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Bill Cassidy (Louisiana) have expressed concerns.
House Republican leadership faced the same hurdle with some of its members, Representative Jason Smith (Missouri), the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said on Washington Watch Monday.
“We had those same issues in the House, but they got there. This is a very common sense, fiscally smart rescissions (package) that the administration has asked Congress to do. The House delivered. I sure hope the Senate will deliver,” Smith told show host Tony Perkins.
Uncertain Republican votes in both chambers underscore the difficulty in passing the Big Beautiful Bill “because of these razor-thin majorities in the House and the Senate,” Smith said.
“We cut $1.5 trillion in the One Big Beautiful Bill. This is a rescissions package of $9.4 billion … billion. They should able to deliver on this. I hope the Senate follows through, hope they get the 50-51 votes.”
Some in the Senate would like to protect funding for National Public Radio (NPR) or President’s Emergency Plan For Aids Relief (PEPFAR), both of which are part of the recissions package.
Smith explains ‘nature’ of Senate
If so, there could be amendments to the package that would require last-minute approval of the House.
“The Senate likes to do that. That’s exactly the nature of the Senate,” Smith said.
Any amendments would only serve to decrease from the $9.4 billion request, Smith said, which begs the question whether Congress can handle additional requests to claw back federal funding.
“This is a very basic one. The $9.4 billion is a very commonsense recissions package. I expect the administration to send more recissions that Congress needs to act on. They should be able to deliver it, but it would not surprise me if they were to amend it at the last hour and pop it over to us on Thursday.”
