Congress Takes the First Step in Making DOGE Cuts Permanent

Things may still be frosty between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, but the DOGE agenda is continuing to chug along in Congress.

The House voted on Thursday to approve $9.4 billion in “DOGE cuts,” passing a bill that would rescind roughly $1.1 billion in funding for NPR and PBS and more than $8.3 billion in foreign aid spending. That includes cuts to PEPFAR, a foreign aid program for the prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS worldwide.

The package of cuts now heads to the Senate, where its fate remains uncertain. It could be the first of multiple rounds of DOGE cuts to come.

Four Republicans ultimately voted against the package, including:

• Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada
• Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania
• Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York
• Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio

The bill passed by a narrow 214-212 margin. Democrats unanimously opposed it.

A handful of Republicans expressed concerns about the bill ahead of the vote. Amodei had signed onto a statement opposing cuts to public broadcasting funds, while others raised concerns about the PEPFAR cuts.

Those concerns could play out again in the Senate, where Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has said she’s opposed to cutting PEPFAR, while Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has declared her opposition to public broadcasting cuts.

Lawmakers are using a process known as “rescission” to make the cuts. That process allows the White House to ask Congress to claw back funding that it’s already approved as part of previous funding bills. It only requires a simple majority vote in the Senate, but if lawmakers don’t approve the rescission within 45 days, the money must be spent.

For Republicans, it’s a way of making DOGE cuts permanent. The administration has already been withholding hundreds of billions of dollars in funding, but the rescissions process is provided for by the Impoundment Control Act, a Nixon-era law that generally requires the president to spend money that’s approved by Congress.

Trump and his allies have argued that the law is unconstitutional, and some Republicans have introduced a bill to overturn it.