The Department of Government Efficiency – DOGE – has saved about $180 billion in tax dollars, according to the agency’s website. But, as they say, the devil is in the details. And the devilish detail that threatens to throw a wrench in the gears of this operation is that reallocating that money takes an act of Congress. That’s not hyperbole or a figure of speech, either; the legislature must pass an actual rescissions bill to reclaim the funds.
The Trump administration has sent a request to Congress for a rescissions bill worth about $9.4 billion. That may not sound like much, relative to the total DOGE savings – or especially the federal budget for the year – but every little bit adds up. And should this package pass, more will follow.
First True Test of DOGE
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) introduced legislation to enact the White House’s rescissions package, which would allow Congress to reclaim $9.4 billion. The House could vote on the bill as early as Tuesday.
All the money DOGE claims to have saved will only become true spending cuts if Congress agrees. Federal spending is legislated into being, which means it has to be legislated out of being as well – it simply falls outside the authority granted to the executive to undo congressional appropriations. The 1974 Impoundment Control Act - created specifically to block presidents from withholding congressionally approved federal funding - also established a process by which a president can officially request rescissions. The White House submits a formal disclosure to Congress, which then has 45 days to review and approve it. Furthermore, much like a reconciliation bill, rescissions only require simple majorities in both the House and Senate – there’s no option to filibuster.
House Republicans are expected to accept the request as it is, according to House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-OK). “We will support as many more rescissions packages as the White House can send us in the coming weeks and months,” the House Freedom Caucus said in a press release. “Passing this rescissions package will be an important demonstration of Congress’s willingness to deliver on DOGE and the Trump agenda.”
But in the Senate, GOP lawmakers are exploring options to change the package to protect funding for global AIDs prevention and public media, like PBS and NPR. “Despite this fast track, the Senate Appropriations Committee will carefully review the rescissions package and examine the potential consequences of these rescissions on global health, national security, emergency communications in rural communities, and public radio and television stations,” Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said in a statement.
“There’ll be something in there that people don’t like, but they’ll have to make a decision if saving the money is worth giving something up. And that’s an individual calculus for each member,” Rep. Cole told reporters last week. If the rescissions aren’t approved by the deadline, the administration must spend the money as directed by law.
A Penny Saved
$9.4 billion may seem small compared to the total federal outlays ($6.8 trillion in FY 2024), the national debt ($36.71 trillion), or even the total savings claimed so far by DOGE ($180 billion). But as the old saying goes, a penny saved is a penny earned – and $9.4 billion is a whole lot of pennies.
Included in this first round of rescissions are $8.3 billion in foreign aid and $1.1 billion for public broadcasting – which are points of contention among several Republican lawmakers, even some who are otherwise excited to see the spending cuts. Also on the chopping block this time are things like $750,000 to reduce xenophobia in Venezuela, $67,000 for feeding insect powder to children in Madagascar, and $3 million for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia.
Where might $9.4 billion go to better effect for the taxpayers who forked it over? At about a million apiece, it could buy 9,400 brand new ladder trucks for fire departments – or, at the same average price each, the same number of brand-new MRI machines – that’s 184 of either for each of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. On the topic of health care, a triple bypass heart surgery costs anywhere from $30,000 to $200,000, depending on a variety of factors. This first rescissions bill could cover the cost of anywhere between 47,000 and 313,000 such lifesaving procedures.
Of course, the money would almost certainly not be sent off to such a noble end as that – but it serves as a good example of just how much buying power $9.4 billion really has. For that matter, if one were to add up all the congressional salaries across both chambers of the legislature – and assuming there isn’t a pay increase on the horizon – it could fully pay Congress for the next 99 years!
Still, those who point out that this DOGE rescissions package is just a drop in the bucket of our overall spending problem do have a point. If this bill passes, though, White House budget director Russ Vought assures it will be the first of many.
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