Relating to Consideration of the Senate Amendment to H.R. Rescissions Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 590 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 590

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution, the House shall be considered to have taken from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 4) to rescind certain budget authority proposed to be rescinded in special messages transmitted to the Congress by the President on June 3, 2025, in accordance with section 1012(a) of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, with the Senate amendment thereto, and to have concurred in the Senate amendment.

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.

During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule and of the underlying legislation. This evening, the Rules Committee met and produced a rule, House Resolution 590, providing for the House's consideration of the Senate amendment to H.R. 4, the Rescissions Act of 2025. Passage of this Rule will send H.R. 4 directly to the President's desk.

Mr. Speaker, if you told the American people that wasteful spending overtook Washington during the Biden-Harris administration, they would not be surprised. Their jaws would not drop, and their pupils would not dilate in utter shock.

The American people saw the fiscal ruin that was created by the previous administration. That is why they overwhelmingly chose Republicans to lead the Nation and restore fiscal sanity. That restoration is here, Mr. Speaker. H.R. 4 is part of our efforts to get Washington's fiscal house in order.

H.R. 4 rescinds $9 billion in spending that the President has identified as wasteful and unnecessary. As I said in the Rules Committee, it is unfortunate that the Senate was not able to execute all of President Trump's recommended rescissions. That said, there are many pertinent rescissions that remain, and they are very impactful.

Now, our Democrat colleagues will scoff and say that this $9 billion we are clawing back is a drop in the bucket; that it is merely peanuts. That is where they are wrong, Mr. Speaker. The thing is that in their arguments against H.R. 4, Democrats can only grasp at straws. Their positions are weak, and their claims are even weaker. They will talk in circles and just bloviate. In the end, they simply don't make any points that are worth remembering. They will rail against H.R. 4 so much that they say absolutely nothing.

Here is the truth. If this rescissions package was not put forth and passed by Congress, taxpayer dollars would still be funneled to ideologues at PBS and NPR and taxpayer dollars would continue to be funneled to all manner of foreign aid repositories that do not align with the fiscal sensibilities and values of the American people. That money, the people's money, would continue to be squandered. That is the truth of the matter.

Republicans understand that $1 of taxpayer money wasted is $1 too many. We must pass this rescissions package and send it to the President so that we can continue our work and continue to secure wins for the American people.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, two words from me: Low energy.

Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, we all know from watching the last 4 years the Democrats have been working for an autopen the last 4 years and not the American citizens.

As a guy from a small town, I want my friends on the other side of the aisle to know this. My town is so small that we literally don't have a red light unless the train comes through. We don't need big-city people telling us how to live. We get along just fine.

In fact, right down the road from my house, a person can open up a cooler and pull fresh vegetables out of there based on the honor system. The bag says how much someone is supposed to pay for them. There is a box with cash in it.

Mr. Speaker, try that in one of your metropolitan areas. While I hear my colleague talk about how much help we in the small town need for more government, as a small-town guy, the deficit and the debt scares us. It does.

Let's talk about the facts about this package. If there is anything that is wrong with the package, it is that it doesn't cut enough.

The net increase in spending so far this fiscal year, the last 9 months, is $318 billion.

Let me say that again for the American citizens.

The net increase in spending has gone up $318 billion in the last 9 months.

This piece of legislation cuts less than one-half of 1 percent of discretionary spending. It is a rounding error on the increase. I wish that DOGE were working as effectively today as it was the first several months of the year. I hope that we, as Republicans, get back to exposing where the American tax dollars have been wasted over the last several years.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage people to vote for this minor cut, but a minor cut is better than no cut.

Mr. HARRIS of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, if this $9 billion House rescissions package doesn't reach President Trump's desk, Congress will have blown the political opportunity of a lifetime.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a simple message to my colleagues: This is a baby step, but if we don't take it, we are not living up to our promises. We all ran on fiscal responsibility, so let's be responsible now and for future rescission packages.

This is low-hanging fruit in the eyes of America, but it breaks the cycle of spending without accountability. It is proof that Congress can and will act responsibly when it wants to.

When the American people put President Trump in office, they demanded lasting changes to a bloated Federal Government. We must not let them down.

Mr. Speaker, give me a break. Republicans are finally offering taxpayers relief from years of spending from Democrats. Again, with President Biden they expanded the Federal Government with an unprecedented $11 trillion in spending, $6 trillion of which has been added to the national debt. It needs to end. We voted to end it in H.R. 1. We are ending it in this package here today, and we won't stop fighting for taxpayers.

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Ms. FOXX.

Here we go again, not talking about the subject at hand but trying to distract people. It is the same old, tired song and dance. Our friends revert to demonizing and misrepresenting the big, beautiful bill. They say you can't make this stuff up, but that is what they do.

We are having one success after another, and it is driving our friends across the aisle to distraction.

When they had full control of the levers of power just a few years ago, they expanded the Federal Government with an unprecedented $11 trillion in spending, $6 trillion of which has been added to the national debt.

What is most revealing is their refusal to articulate a single program, a single outlay, or a single area of Federal spending they want to reduce on behalf of taxpayers. They want every single dime of taxpayer money, and they don't like the historic cutting of $1.6 trillion in waste, fraud, and abuse in H.R. 1. They can't stomach the $9 billion here in this discretionary cuts to wasteful spending. There is no upper limit to the amount of taxpayer dollars they will throw at their government-centered schemes.

How about a million? Can democrats articulate a cut to Federal spending in the amount of a million? How about in the thousands, like the $500,000 for electric buses in Rwanda or the $8,000 for promoting vegan food in Zambia that we are cutting now? They can't do it, and that is very unfortunate because it has dire consequences for our Nation.

The fact is, we can't work in a bipartisan fashion to cut Federal spending anymore, and that wasn't always the case. Our colleagues are addicted to a tax-and-spend formula that has been bankrupting our government.

But we won't stand idly by. We won't wait on Democrats to take their heads out of the sand or wake up from this woke-induced coma. We are taking bold action at every level and in every facet of the Federal Government to get our Federal spending under control. We will do it $8,000 at a time when we have to or $1.6 trillion at a time when we can. We have been given this mandate, and the American people are counting on us.

Mr. Speaker, let's talk about the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which mandates that all public broadcasting programs must demonstrate strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs. There are a myriad of statistical studies that prove that they are not.

Perhaps most damning for NPR is the fact that it had to utilize a $1.9 million Federal grant to ``improve objectivity and diverse viewpoints'' last year. This is despite the fact that NPR's CEO recently testified, as our colleague said, that she didn't witness any bias at the organization. Then why the need for the Federal grant?

The problem with the Public Broadcasting Act is that it lacks an enforcement mechanism, so we will go with our constitutional prerogatives here to enforce the law. It starts with the rescission of funding.

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, we are far from weak. We are doing what the American people want us to do, and that is to let them keep more of their money and not take it and let unnamed bureaucrats spend it on their behalf.

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I am not quite ready to close, but will be shortly.

Mr. Speaker, all night, our colleagues across the aisle have been talking about what we are not here to discuss, which is this rescissions package. They keep trying to distract the American people with things that we are not here to talk about.

The American people do not want to see their hard-earned tax dollars being squandered, not one bit. At its core, H.R. 4 is about shutting off the spigot of wasteful money, clawing back the tax dollars of Americans, and ensuring that wasteful and unnecessary spending is uprooted and left to wither and die.

It is just that simple. That is all there is to it. With more rescissions packages on the horizon, the President and Speaker have indicated that the best is yet to come.

We are doing our job to help save the American taxpayers' dollars. We know how hard it is to earn those dollars, and we don't want to see them squandered.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the previous question, ``yes'' on the rule, and ``yes'' on the underlying bill.

The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:

An Amendment to H. Res. 590 Offered by Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 2. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the bill (H.R. 4405) to require the Attorney General to release all documents and records in possession of the Department of Justice relating to Jeffrey Epstein, and for other purposes. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and on any amendment thereto, to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their respective designees; and (2) one motion to recommit.

Sec. 3. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX and clause 8 of rule XX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 4405.

Sec. 4. The Clerk shall transmit to the Senate a message that the House has passed H.R. 4405 no later than one week after passage.
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