House Looks to Formally Slash PBS, NPR and Other Funding Next Week

WASHINGTON — The House Rules Committee on Tuesday will mark up a $9 billion-plus rescissions package from the White House, setting the stage for a floor vote next week that will immediately implement the cuts.

The carve-backs requested by President Donald Trump include slashing more than $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, money used to help fund National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.

Also part of the legislation are sweeping cuts to U.S. foreign aid.

The Rules Committee is expected to mark up the legislation on June 10 at 2 p.m. in room H-313 in the U.S. Capitol.

If the Republican-controlled panel advances the rule, as is expected, it must be passed by the full House within 45 days and isn’t subject to a Senate filibuster.

The permanent cancellation of funding in H.R. 4, otherwise known as the Rescissions Act of 2025, includes the “unobligated balances” left under several previous acts of Congress, including:

• $33,008,764 in contributions to international organizations funded through the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2024.
• $168,837,230 allocated for the same purpose under the most recent continuing resolution passed by Congress, otherwise known as the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025. 
• $203,328,007 earmarked for contributions to international peacekeeping activities in the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2024.
• $157,906,000 allocated for the same purpose under the most recent continuing resolution passed by Congress, otherwise known as the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025. 
• $500,000,000 dedicated to global health programs in the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025. 
• $400,000,000 allocated for the same purpose under a separate provision of the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025.
• $800,000,000 intended to be spent on “migration and refugee assistance” under the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025. 
• $43,000,000 that was to go to the president’s “Complex Crisis Fund” under the auspices of the Continuing Appropriations Act.
• $83,000,000 that would have gone to the Democracy Fund.
• $1,650,000,000 from the “bilateral economic assistance economic support fund,” also from the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025. 
• $125,000,000 in assistance that was to have assisted international financial institutions as a contribution to the multilateral Clean Technology Fund.
• $436,920,000 that was to be used for “multilateral assistance” under the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025.
• $2,500,000,000 in development assistance included in the Appropriations Act.
• $460,000,000 in assistance earmarked for “Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia” under the act.
• $496,000,000 in international disaster assistance.
• $125,000,000 that was to have paid for the operating expenses for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
• $57,000,000 for “transition initiatives” made available by the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025.
• $27,000,000 earmarked for the Inter-American Foundation.
• $22,000,000 in funding for the U.S. African Development Foundation.
• $15,000,000 that was to have gone to the U.S. Institute of Peace under the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2025.
• $535,000,000 in payments to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for fiscal year 2026, and an additional $60,000,000 set aside that same year to cover CPB’s costs associated with replacing and upgrading the public broadcasting interconnection system. 
• Another approximately $500,000,000 that had been earmarked for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the 2027 fiscal year.

“These are commonsense cuts,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during a briefing with reporters on Tuesday.

“Not only does the rescissions package we received from the White House cut more than $9 billion in wasteful spending, it addresses glaring abuses associated with USAID and others,” he said.

But Johnson seemed particularly proud of the cuts in the “Corporation for Public Broadcasting space.”

“Don’t forget, NPR refused to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story,” he said. “Earlier this year the company’s CEO admitted she regards ‘truth’ as a ‘harmful distraction’ from NPR’s objectives.

“PBS produced a movie titled ‘Real Voice,’ which celebrated a transgender teen’s transition, and it has featured drag queens on other programs. This is always here,” Johnson continued.

“On the foreign aid front, we’re cutting things like $6 million that was set aside to help create ‘Net Zero’ cities in Mexico, and $4 million for a Sedentary Conference — whatever that is — in Colombia.

“Another thing we’re cutting is a million dollars we were going to spend on voter ID in Haiti, where they don’t even want it. So we’re doing a lot of things with this bill that need to be done,” he said.

Johnson said the rescissions package sent over by the White House on Monday is “the manifestation of the DOGE effort, which is transforming the way the American people do government.”

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue