The White House intends to send Capitol Hill a second request to claw back congressionally-approved funding — this time targeting the Department of Education, according to a White House aide granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public.
Less than a week after congressional Republicans approved the administration’s first rescissions package to slash $9 billion for public broadcast and foreign aid, the White House aide said Tuesday that lawmakers would soon receive President Donald Trump’s next round of desired funding cuts to education programs.
The Daily Signal first reported earlier Tuesday that education funding would be in the mix for the next package, though it’s not yet clear how much money the administration will ask Congress to rescind or when the request will formally be sent.
In a brief interview Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise also would not disclose specifics about the forthcoming package, but confirmed talks between GOP leaders and the administration on the matter are well underway.
“We haven’t made a final decision on what will be in the second rescissions package, but we’re of course talking about it,” Scalise said. “The administration is very interested in it.”
Scalise added that the Trump administration is “having talks with appropriators” and will ultimately decide when to send it over and what’s in it: “But nothing starts until they send us an actual document.”
Speaker Mike Johnson told Republicans in recent days this second package won’t be as big as the first, according to two people granted anonymity to share details of private discussions. Many congressional Republicans are still reeling from the recissions bill they managed to pass and send to Trump’s desk with just hours to spare before the deadline to act, or force the administration to spend the money as Congress originally intended.
It also was an excruciating exercise for a slew of them who wanted to oppose the measure to assert Congress’ power of the purse but didn’t want to be crosswise with Trump.
Scalise, on the other hand, said he’s “hoping” Republicans will do it all over again — enthusiasm shared by a broad swatch of fiscal hawks in both chambers.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, said in an interview Tuesday he was looking forward to receiving so-called pocket rescissions from the administration.
White House budget chief Russ Vought has been saying he’s interesting in deploying the tactic where he would send Congress funding to cut less than 45 days out from a government funding deadline on Sept. 30 — and, if Congress didn’t take action, the money would immediately be revoked come Oct. 1.
“As long as the administration sends them by August 15, then Congress doesn’t need to do anything,” Harris said.
Vought also said last week that a second request to rescind congressionally approved spending was likely coming soon, and had previously suggested to Senate appropriators that education programs were on the table.
While the administration said it would send states approximately $1.3 billion in approved funding for summer and afterschool programs on Monday, billions of dollars in pending federal aid to schools are still being withheld by the White House amid an ongoing spending review.
Last week, administration officials told lawmakers and state authorities that final decisions related to the remaining portion of approximately $7 billion in education funds devoted to teacher training, migrant student education and other initiatives have not been made as they continue to be reviewed as part of Trump’s broader agenda of scrutinizing programs related to immigration and LGBTQ+ issues.
“These are the programs that we have some of the gravest concerns with regarding the Education Department,” Vought told reporters last week during an event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
“You have a preschool program that doesn’t do any preschool funding, all it does is indoctrination of four-year-olds of [critical race theory],” Vought added. “You have school improvement programs that are indoctrinating teachers to be cultural revolutionaries in the classroom. So we have concerns with these programs, so they’re the ones that we’re going to study the most.”
Meredith Lee Hill and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
