[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 121 (Tuesday, July 15, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4352-S4354]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Rescissions
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, also, with me today is Mr. Will McCarthy,
one of my colleagues from my Senate office.
Today, we are going to start talking about and voting on the
rescission package, and I want to talk about that for a few minutes.
As the Presiding Officer knows, under our Constitution, Congress
passes a budget. We send that budget to the President of the United
States, whoever that might be, and the President executes, or
implements, our budget.
On occasion, under Federal statute, the President has the authority,
after we have passed a budget in Congress, to look at the budget and
say: You know, I don't need all this money to accomplish the goals that
Congress established and instructed me to accomplish.
So the President can contact us and say: Congress, I would like you
to rescind some of the spending in the budget that you sent to me.
It is called a rescission bill or a rescission package.
President Trump has sent us a rescission bill, or a rescission
package, asking the U.S. Congress to cut the budget by roughly $9
billion, and that is what we are going to start voting on today.
Now, $9 billion is a lot of money--except when you compare it to the
overall Federal budget. Nine billion dollars, despite the fact that it
is a bucketload of money, is one-tenth of 1 percent of the Federal
budget--one-tenth of 1 percent of the Federal budget. It gives you an
idea of how big the Federal budget is.
I think most people--most adults, anyway--understand that in life,
what you say doesn't really matter. What you say doesn't really matter.
It is what you do that demonstrates what you believe. That is certainly
true in politics, and that is certainly true in Washington, DC. Ignore
what anybody in Washington, DC, says. Ignore it. If you want to
understand their behavior, look at their behavior. In Washington, DC,
as in life, what you do is what you believe, not what you say. What you
do is what you believe, and everything else is just cottage cheese.
Now, President Trump--whether you voted for him or not and whether
you like him or not--ran on a platform of reducing the size of
government, and the people elected him. Since day one, the President,
if you have paid attention to the news, has been working very hard to
reduce government spending, and he has reduced a lot. He started out
with the DOGE program, with Mr. Elon Musk. Mr. Musk, of course, has
left, but the quest to reduce government spending--wasteful government
spending, which I call spending porn--continues.
Every Republican in the U.S. Senate has voiced approval of what the
President has done. Every Republican--every one of my colleagues,
myself included--has said to the President: Attaboy, Mr. President. Go
get `em. Keep issuing those Executive orders. Reduce the spending. We
are spending too much money. We have got a $37 trillion debt. Keep
going, Mr. President.
The President has, but he has been doing it through Executive order.
There is only so much you can do through Executive order. An Executive
order, issued by a President, expires when the President is no longer
in office. The only way to permanently reduce spending is to have
Congress act, and that is what the President is asking us to do in this
rescission bill.
What you do is what you believe, and everything else is just cottage
cheese.
The rescission package that the President has sent over--we are going
to start considering it today. And after listening in some cases for
years but certainly for the last 100-plus days since President Trump
has been in office--after listening to my Republican colleagues talk
about the importance of reducing spending, it is gut check
[[Page S4353]]
time. It is gut check time because what you do is what you believe, not
what you say, and now my colleagues and I have an opportunity to really
support the President.
Now, I don't know if this bill is going to pass. I do not know if it
is going to pass. I mean, I have heard a lot of wailing and the
gnashing of teeth and whining and that civilization is going to melt if
we cut one-tenth of 1 percent of the budget. That is coming from some
of my Democratic colleagues, and they are entitled to their point of
view, but I want to put this in context.
After all of us on my side of the aisle have told the world that we
need to reduce spending, if we vote against this rescission package and
refuse to reduce spending by one-tenth of 1 percent of the budget, we
ought to hide our heads in a bag. We ought to hide our heads in a bag.
What kind of spending is the President asking us to reduce, to
eliminate? That is important because not all government spending is
wasteful, but a lot of it is. That is why I call it spending porn. I am
going to read you some of the appropriations that the President is
asking us to eliminate from the current budget, and you be the judge.
Let the American people decide.
The President is asking us to eliminate $5.1 million of taxpayer
money in the American budget, the Federal budget, that is there to
``strengthen the resilience of queer global movements.''
The President is asking us to rescind $6 million for media
organizations and civic life for Palestinians.
The President, in light of our $37 trillion budget deficit, is asking
us to reduce spending--to reduce a program--in the amount of $3.9
million for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and
intersex population in the Western Balkans.
The President is suggesting that we eliminate a program of $1 million
for voter ID programs in Haiti.
This is your money, folks.
The President is asking us to reduce the budget by $3 million which
is appropriated for ``sexual reproductive health in Venezuela''; $3
million for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia.
I didn't make this stuff up; it is in the budget.
There is $3 million for ``Sesame Street'' in Iraq; $833,000 for
transgender people, sex workers, and their clients in Nepal; $882,000
for social media mentorship in Serbia and Belarus; $3.6 million for
pastry cooking classes, cyber cafes, and dance focus groups for male
prostitutes in Haiti.
How many Americans do you know think we should be spending their
money to fund male prostitutes in Haiti? But there it is in our
budget--bigger than Dallas--and the President is saying: Cut it out.
We have $6.2 million for Venezuelan migrants in Colombia and $500,000
to buy Rwanda electric buses.
I love Rwanda. If they want electric buses, they have got a budget.
There is $300,000 for a pride parade in Lesotho; $300,000 for
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex advocacy in
Uganda; $500,000 for biodiversity in Peru.
I could keep going. I could go the rest of the day and night.
I know what you are thinking: How in God's name--on God's green
Earth--did this spending porn get in the Federal Government's budget?
Why would Congress put it there?
Well, I am going to tell you why: We didn't. When we pass a budget,
we pass budgets based on programs or agendas or line items. We don't
put in there that we would like to spend $5.1 million on strengthening
the resilience of queer global movements. We appropriate money by
Agency or line item. For example, we might appropriate money for the
Economic Support Fund or, if you look at our budget, you will see money
appropriated for the United States Institute of Peace. If you look at
our budget, you will see money that Congress has appropriated for
migration and refugee assistance. Then this money goes to the
bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy takes the money that we have
appropriated, for example, to the Economic Support Fund, and they
decide to give it to their friends--usually nongovernmental
organizations--to fund these nonsensical items that I just spent a few
minutes reading.
Congress didn't vote to spend $3 million on sexual reproductive
health in Venezuela; we voted for a program that the bureaucrats took
and spent on sexual health, reproductive health, in Venezuela. That is
not an excuse, but I get that question all the time: Why did Congress
vote to do this? We didn't. The bureaucracy did. It is a giant, rogue
beast.
The point is, Trump caught it, and his people caught it, and the
President is saying: Get rid of it.
With all of these programs, this spending porn, we would be better
off taking this money and spending it on scratch tickets and blackjack.
We would be better off taking all of this money that I just talked
about and spending it on scratch tickets and blackjack. At least
taxpayers might have a chance of getting a return. That is how out of
control this is. But if you listen to some of my colleagues, they say:
Oh, my God. If we cut $9 billion--if we cut this spending porn--
civilization is going to melt.
There is one other thing in our budget that the President is asking
us to cut. He is asking us to cut a little over $1 billion for what I
will call public broadcasting. When I say ``public broadcasting,'' I am
talking about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I am talking
about the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS. I am talking about
National Public Radio--NPR, as we call it.
We spend anywhere from $500 to $600 million a year on public
broadcasting. Why do we do that? Well, we started doing it years ago--
at least 50 years ago--at a time when there were only three television
stations and a few radio stations and newspapers. A lot of folks in
rural areas didn't get the television stations. They didn't get any
news at all. They might live far enough away from a major city that
they didn't even have a daily newspaper.
So Congress said: You know, we want everybody to know what is going
on in the world. We are going to start public broadcasting, and we are
going to give them money every year, and they won't have to run ads
because we are going to spend taxpayer money to give to these radio
stations and television stations. That was 50 years ago.
Today, American people have access to all forms of media: streaming,
cable TV, network TV, TikTok, Twitter, newspapers--those that are left.
No one is in a news desert anymore. So why are we spending money on
public broadcasting, $500 million a year?
The other factor is, it is undeniable that Public Broadcasting has
become political. Unless you have been a huge disappointment to your
parents, you understand if you listen to Public Broadcasting, that it
is representing today one political point of view.
The president of NPR--no one would mistake her for Walter Cronkite, I
can assure you--her name is Kathleen Maher. This is her position. She
is supposed to be delivering the news objectively, but this is what she
has said:
Trump is a deranged racist sociopath.
The president and CEO of NPR thinks that America is ``addicted to
white supremacy.'' She has denounced the use of words ``boy'' and
``girl.'' She says that is ``erasing language for non-binary people.''
She contends that the United States was founded on the basis of ``black
plunder and white democracy.'' That is who is running the show over
there.
She is entitled to her beliefs. This is America. You are entitled to
believe what you want.
NPR and PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are entitled
to publish and broadcast what they publish, but not on the taxpayers'
dime. When we owe $37 trillion--and we really owe that money--we have
no business spending half a billion dollars a year, giving it to any
form of media. We don't fund CNN. We don't fund FOX News. We don't fund
newspapers. Why are we funding PBS and NPR and the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting?
All the President is saying: I don't want you to do that anymore,
Congress. I don't want you to fund any form of media. PBS, for example,
is right to publish what they want, but Congress shouldn't give them
taxpayer money to do it. Let them go raise money in the private sector.
The President is right. The President is absolutely right.
That is all this rescission bill is going to do. It is going to bring
a little bit of sanity back to our appropriations process.
[[Page S4354]]
I am going to end on this note. I am going to end as I began: What
you do is what you believe, and everything else is just cottage cheese.
I have been here 10 years. Every one of those 10 years, but
especially in the last 100 days since President Trump was reelected and
started talking about reducing spending, I have listened to all of my
Republican colleagues encourage the President and say: That is great.
We have got to reduce spending. We have got to reduce spending.
Well, here is your chance. Here is your chance. It is gut-check time.
You either believe in reducing spending, or you don't. You either
support spending porn, or you don't. We are going to find out who does
and who doesn't here in about 3 or 4 hours.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.