U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson react during an Invest America Roundtable in the State Dining room, at the White House, in Washington, U.S., June 9, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
The House on Wednesday moved a step closer to approving President Donald Trump’s $9.4 billion spending cut package, which would codify some cuts originally proposed by the Department of Government Efficiency.
The package would grant permission to the White House not to spend billions of dollars that had already been approved by Congress. The money would be clawed back from specific agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes federally appropriated grants to National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
Although the Wednesday procedural vote passed largely along party lines, a final vote expected Thursday could see some resistance from House Republicans who are uneasy about the popular programs that are being targeted, like PBS and National Public Radio.
Given House Speaker Mike Johnson’s narrow Republican majority, he can only afford to lose a handful of votes and still push the package over the finish line on a party-line vote.
Johnson said earlier this week that he was “working on” getting enough Republicans on board to pass the DOGE package, CNN reported.
Wednesday’s vote also finalized changes to Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” that were required by the Senate before the measure was allowed to pass with a simple majority, rather than the typical 60-vote Senate threshold.
Budget measures like the “big, beautiful bill” can be considered under a special set of rules known as reconciliation.
The Senate’s parliamentarian, who acts as a sort of referee in disputes over Senate rules, had flagged some provisions in the package earlier that she said were incompatible with the chamber’s reconciliation rules.