White House sends savings request to Congress

On Tuesday, the White House presented Congress with a rescission package, requesting lawmakers to codify a handful of the spending reductions made through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The request outlines up to $9.4 billion in retractions to spending for 2025 that Congress passed in March.

“House Republicans will continue delivering on our mandate from the American people: to restore efficiency and accountability to the federal government. The House will act quickly on this request,” U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement.

The proposed cuts include $8.3 billion in reductions to the United States’ foreign aid and $1.1 billion in cuts from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—the service which provides some funding for NPR and PBS.

Although the president’s request falls well short of the full amount DOGE identified as cuts, Republican lawmakers view it as a key step towards making good on their promise to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. Cementing the reductions in law would shield them from legal challenges and add a degree of permanence.

“We need a lot more to get this country back on the financial track, which I think we will,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the powerful Rules Committee and a member of the fiscally conservative House Freedom Caucus.

When asked if he expects more rescission requests from the White House, Norman said he looks forward to considering as many as Trump can send over.

“Hopefully [one] every two weeks,” Norman said.

He clarified that his thinking does not reflect the position or expectations of the president.

A rescission package has a lower bar for passage, allowing Congress to more easily claw back spending it has already approved. The rescission power stems from the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and would allow the Republican-controlled Senate to fast-track the bill’s advancement with only a simple majority, circumventing the 60 votes usually required to break a filibuster. Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the chamber.

But the power is also limited. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., chairs the House Oversight Committee’s subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency. She explained that the fast-track powers can expire.

“It starts a 45-day clock,” Greene said of the House’s consideration of the package. “My understanding is that, say [the Senate] didn’t pass it in the 45 days—you can’t do it again. That’s why they’re being very careful. We have to make sure the Senate is capable of taking it up and passing it.”

Greene explained Republicans could shoot themselves in the foot by passing the rescission package at an inopportune moment. That consideration revolves around the Senate calendar, which for months has been chock-full of nominations, hearings, and committee work.

Speaker Johnson aims to bring the rescission request to the floor of the House sometime next week.

Some groups have urged Congress to not pass the package, citing the reductions in foreign aid programs. Bread for the World, a Christian advocacy group, argued it would leave recipients without readily available alternatives to the aid the funding makes possible.

“Specifically, international disaster assistance would be cut by $500 million, global health by $900 million, and development assistance by $2.5 billion,” Eugene Cho, president of the group, told WORLD in a statement.

When asked why this rescission package doesn’t include more of the $180 billion DOGE has informally cut so far, Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., chair of the House DOGE Caucus, said he shares Norman’s expectations. He would prefer several smaller packages to one large rescission.

“I want little singles every week,” Bean said, referring to the baseball term for advancing the game incrementally without necessarily hitting a home run. “To get there you have to take the first step. We’re going to try to codify a lot of things—it’s like walking on a walker. It’s a lot slower than you want to go, but it does get you there eventually.”

Bean said he expects that House Republicans will more readily focus on codifying DOGE’s work once they have finished consideration of Trump’s mega “One Big Beautiful Bill.” That piece of legislation, which would enact President Trump’s main domestic policy goals, passed out of the House of Representatives last month and is currently under consideration in the Senate. The House must re-consider any changes the Senate makes to the text.

“Listen, I understand,” Bean said. “The Big Beautiful Bill has consumed—and is still consuming—all of the oxygen. Once we get that out of the way, we can focus like a laser on making additional cuts. There’s an appetite to do it.”

House GOP leaders have said they want a final consideration of Trump’s bill sometime around July 4.

Greene, the chair of the oversight subcommittee, says not all of DOGE’s estimated $180 billion in cuts need to come through Congress.

“Some of those are grants and contracts and those are things Congress has nothing to do with. Those are contracts the departments themselves actually sign and hand out,” Greene said, referring to the individual government agencies that manage the country’s bureaucracies.

In his previous administration, Trump proposed rescission packages, but those never reached consideration in the Senate. According tothe Government Accountability Office, the last successful rescission package passed under the Clinton administration.