U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill Thursday canceling about $9 billion that had been approved for public broadcasting and foreign aid as Republicans look to lock in cuts to programs targeted by the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The bulk of the spending being clawed back is for foreign assistance programs. About $1.1 billion was destined for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances NPR and PBS, though most of that money is distributed to more than 1,500 local public radio and television stations around the country.
The White House had billed the legislation as a test case for Congress and said more such rescission packages would be on the way.
Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda. Democrats unanimously rejected the cuts but were powerless to stop them.
The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense. Conservatives particularly directed their ire at NPR and PBS. Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced grave concern about what the cuts to public broadcasting could mean for some local public stations in their state. Some stations will have to close, they warned.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the stations are “not just your news — it is your tsunami alert, it is your landslide alert, it is your volcano alert.”
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On the foreign aid cuts, the White House argued that they would incentivize other nations to step up and do more to respond to humanitarian crises and that the rescissions best served the American taxpayer.
Democrats argued that the Republican administration’s animus toward foreign aid programs would hurt America’s standing in the world and create a vacuum for China to fill. They also expressed concerns that the cuts would have deadly consequences for many of the world’s most impoverished people.
“With these cuts, we will cause death, spread disease and deepen starvation across the planet,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.
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