Elon Musk he may have “dropped out” of the White House, but his DOGE cuts have “arrived” and are close to being adopted.
The White House is expected to announce a $9.4 billion forgiveness package on Tuesday that would reverse congressionally approved money that the Trump administration no longer wants to spend.
This package goes hand in hand with Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said she was building on DOGE’s success in securing $1.6 trillion in savings for mandatory spending such as Medicaid. A repeal allows the President to cancel funds previously appropriated by Congress but not yet spent.
The proposed cuts include foreign aid ($8.3 billion), education and transportation programs, reproductive health, funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately $142 million in cuts to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and nearly $9 million in cuts to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The package includes $1.1 billion in funding cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The key is to designate expenses as discretionary and mandatory, as discretionary funding may be impacted by the rescission process.
Once the White House Office of Management and Budget formally sends a rescission request to Congress, lawmakers have 45 days to act before the request expires. The committees have 25 days to take action, after which an accelerated vote takes place. A procedural advantage of nullification bills is that only a basic majority is required to pass them in the Senate, as opposed to the typical 60-vote threshold for most legislation.
“These packages will be a key step towards codifying President Trump’s agenda and ensuring lasting government spending reductions,” it wrote on Twitter Representative Dan Meuser (R-09) after appearing on Fox Business News on Tuesday. “With nearly $7 trillion in annual federal spending, we must prioritize the essentials over the nice-to-haves” to address our massive national debt. President Trump’s plan will reduce spending, grow the economy and boost revenues – lower the deficit and improve our creditworthiness. It’s a fiscally responsible way forward – and it will benefit all Americans. “
Last Tuesday, NPR and three public radio stations in Colorado filed a lawsuit in federal court against Trump and several members of his administration over the executive order cutting federal funding for NPR and PBS.
The lawsuit calls Trump’s early May executive order ordering the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to freeze all funding to NPR and PBS “textbook retaliation” and an existential threat to the public radio system “that millions of Americans across the country rely on for important news and information.”
“It’s clear from the president’s executive order, as well as from statements issued by the White House and the president’s past statements, that we are being punished for our editorial choices” – NPR CEO Katarzyna Maher he told the All Things Remembered host Mary Louise Kelly.
The Freedom Club of the House of Representatives calls for an immediate vote on the package, as Representative Brandon Gill (R-Texas) tweeted: “There is no excuse for delaying the forgiveness package. The minute we get it, it should hit the floor. It’s time to cut down on waste and get on with it.”
Rep. Scott Perry (R-10) tweeted that “The upcoming revision package is a litmus test for your elected officials to deliver on all the America First promises they made during the campaign.”
But Democrats say the domestic spending bill would add more than $2 trillion to the national debt, and the $9.4 billion represents just 1.38 percent of the $6.8 trillion the U.S. government spends annually.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-02), ranking member of the House Budget Committee, told PoliticsPA on Monday that the Big Beautiful Bill’s cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and the Affordable Care Act amount to approximately $1.5 trillion, while the size of the proposed tax cuts exceeds $5 trillion.
“How do they propose to cover the $3.5 trillion deficit,” Boyle asked. “No. There would be more money added to our nation’s deficit and more money on our national credit card, the national debt, so there are many of us, including several Senate Republicans, who have said this should be a legitimate bipartisan concern.”
“There is a real concern that at some point, if we continue on the path we’re on right now, we’re going to hit a debt crisis. Right now, 10-year Treasuries are at about 4.5 percent. If we suddenly start to see that rate drop north of five or hit six, that would be a sign that in international markets, investors internationally who are buying our debt have reached a point where they say, ‘Hey, wait, you already have a debt that exceeds 100% of its GDP and has no observable plan to repay it.”
And in fact, forecasts show that the situation will be much worse in the next decade. I’ve talked to a number of analysts, including some typically conservative people on Wall Street, who both publicly and privately say that we can’t actually issue that amount of fresh debt because demand is quite tender.
Musk speaking after 130-day SGE or Special Government employeehis contract with the federal government had expired, he used his “X” platform to oppose the Big Beautiful Bill.
The Congressional Budget Office and independent analysts project that Trump’s bill – extending tax cuts through 2017 – will boost the deficit by between $2.3 trillion and $5 trillion over the next 10 years.
The bill also includes fresh spending on border security and the military, which Republicans have sought to offset with cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy tax credits.
“For him to come out and discuss the entire bill is just very disappointing to me, very surprising,” Johnson said in response to Musk’s criticism of the House tax, immigration and energy bill. “It’s a very important first start. Elon misses it, OK, and it’s not personal.”
White House officials strongly dispute claims that the bill would boost the deficit, arguing that the projections do not take into account the high level of economic growth that the tax cuts could generate.
“Listen, the president already knows what Elon Musk’s position is on this bill,” said the White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt he said during Tuesday’s briefing. “It doesn’t change the president’s opinion – it’s one big, beautiful bill and he’s sticking to it.”
