JD FOSTER: The Senate Should Pass The Recissions Package Quickly
The House acted with remarkable alacrity in passing President Trump’s $9.4 billion recissions package . If he keeps this up, they may have to change Mike Johnson’s title from “Speaker” to “House Magician.” The Senate…
The House acted with remarkable alacrity in passing President Trump’s $9.4 billion recissions package. If he keeps this up, they may have to change Mike Johnson’s title from “Speaker” to “House Magician.” The Senate should capitalize on this big win by moving quickly to pass the bill and send it to the president’s desk. It would make a bigger difference than the initial score suggests.
The urgency emerges in part from the soaring national debt, though even if the budget were perfectly balanced this package still deserves support. Among other steps, the package cuts funding for the left-wing National Public Radio and for PBS. Even if these organizations were politically neutral, the federal government has no business funding or managing media outlets.
The recission package also slashes wasteful foreign aid Secretary of State Rubio and DOGE identified. It would be tough to find more politically popular spending cuts, or more crucial cuts to future spending reduction. How does a politician respond when asked, “How can you cut spending on my deal when the government is spending billions for foreigners?”
Yet the real driver for the recissions package is the debt issue. The CBO projects the federal government will run a deficit of $1.7 trillion plus this year. Against such a massive figure a recissions package of under $10 billion may seem a rounding error, but our deep fiscal hole was dug over many years. No single bill is going to fill it. It will take time and a relentless pursuit of savings involving big reforms and small. This package is only a start, but every step counts.
Recissions result because one Congress chose to spend on some programs and then it or the next Congress decided it didn’t need to spend so much. In simple parlance, recission legislation says, “never mind.”
Recission packages are not uncommon. They manifest sound governance and should really pass at least once a year considering how much is spent and how complex and diverse are federal activities.