Washington – Senate Republicans are making changes in a package of expense cuts of $ 9.4 billion proposed by President Donald Trump while running to approve the measure on a deadline on Friday.
After a lunch meeting on Tuesday with the Budget Director of the White House, Russell Vought agreed to a significant change: eliminating about $ 400 million in cuts to Pepfar, the foreign aid program of the Bush era to combat HIV/AIDS, which has been accredited by saving millions of lives.
It was carried out with the aim of ensuring the simple majority necessary to approve the termination package through the Senate, after several Republicans expressed opposition to those cuts.
“There is a substitute amendment that I think has a good opportunity to pass,” Vought told journalists. “Pepfar will not be affected by termination.”
Republican leaders of the Senate hope to celebrate a key vote to proceed to the extent on Tuesday night, before triggering a period of debate and an open amendment process.
It is not clear if the bill has the 51 votes necessary in the Senate, where the Republican party controls 53 seats. Republicans plan to pass it in the lines of the party through a rarely used filibuster proof process that gives Congress 45 days since the time of the White House application to take it to the president’s desk. That deadline is Friday.
The Senate Plan to amend the bill means that you will have to approve the Chamber controlled by the Republican Party again before Trump can sign it.
“There was a lot of interest among our members to do something on the topic of Pepfar, and that is reflected in the substitute,” the leader of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, RS.D. “And we hope that if we can transmit this in the finish line in the Senate, that the camera accepts that small modification that ends the package still a termination package of $ 9 billion. A little less than what was sent on the chamber, but nevertheless a significant payment to eliminate waste, fraud, abuse in our government.”
Most of the cuts are for foreign aid. The package also cuts $ 1.1 billion of the Corporation for Public Transmission, which finances PBS and NPR. That has caused objections of some Republicans, who say that the components in rural areas trust these stations for essential issues such as emergency alerts.
Thune said that Senator Mike Rounds, RS.D., who had concerns about rural transmission, reached an agreement with the White House that “allows them to reschedule some funds that would address the 28 stations throughout the country that receive funds through CPB that are in our reserves of American natives.”
Rounds said he will support legislation as a result.
“This is a direct agreement with OMB that would transfer the funds to the Department of the Interior. The Department of the Interior has agreed to accept it and issue the subsidies,” he said. “We have told you very clearly what we want these resources to be available for these American native radio stations.”
The White House said it will resume to spend the funds if the Senate does not send the package to Trump before the deadline of 45 days.
“We have to eliminate our control over money,” said Vought. “Therefore, we will not implement the cuts if this vote does not come out on our way.”
The leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., has criticized the proposed cuts and warned that if the Republicans terminate the programs of expenses approved in bipartisan agreements, it would make it difficult to achieve the 60 votes necessary to achieve a financing agreement this fall.
He said Tuesday that Democrats still expect to continue spending bipartisan decisions.
“We are doing everything possible, everything we can to maintain the process of bipartisan appropriations in the future,” said Schumer.
Brennan Leach contributed.
