[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 121 (Tuesday, July 15, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4355-S4356]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Rescissions

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I am so pleased that we are going to 
move forward today on the rescission package that has come over to us 
from the House.
  As I talk to Tennesseeans, one of the No. 1 things they talk about is 
the debt; what are we doing to stop the out-of-control spending and to 
get this national debt under control.
  After you look at what happened with COVID and with the Joe Biden 
years, we are sitting at $37 trillion in debt. So last November, the 
American people voted to make a change on how this country is running. 
One of the things they wanted to see changed was out-of-control, 
reckless spending.
  Now, if you look at this debt and where it stands right now and you 
say: How much am I, as an American citizen, responsible for, each and 
every citizen in this country would be holding $108,000 in debt. Think 
about that. All of our citizens, each and every one of us--whether you 
are the dad, the mom, the children--each and every citizen bears the 
burden of $108,000 in our Nation's debt.
  One of the things that came up this weekend when I was at home and 
somebody was asking about the rescission package and when we were going 
to get this done and start making some of the cuts, start making the 
DOGE cuts--this was a veteran, and they pointed out that they were 
aware that we are spending more money to pay the interest on our debt 
than we are spending to fund the U.S. military.
  Think about that. Think about what that message is that goes to other 
countries as they are looking at what we are spending on national 
defense compared to what we are spending on our debt.
  What does that say about the priorities that we have as a nation?
  So Tennesseeans know that the path we are on with this spending is 
not sustainable. We can't continue this.
  When you look at where we were with our debt when George Bush was 
President and we were at about $10.5 trillion when he left the Oval 
Office and Barack Obama and Joe Biden come in, and they doubled that 
number; you had President Trump's first term and COVID hit; and then 
the out-of-control spending by the Biden White House, that is how you 
end up at $37 trillion, and it should concern everyone.
  I guess we are learning the autopen was signing a lot of those sales 
receipts over at the White House. The point is, we have this debt.
  Now, the good thing is, that when the American people voted to get 
this spending under control last November, they sent President Donald 
Trump back to the White House, back to the Oval Office. And, yes, 
indeed, he has gotten busy looking at how we spend the taxpayers' 
money.
  He has spent time looking at the resources that we have and how we 
utilize those resources. And indeed, they have targeted $190 billion in 
this year's budget documents for waste, fraud, and abuse and for 
removing those programs to yield that savings to the American people.
  And I think the American people see this as a victory for them and 
for their pocketbook. Hard-working taxpayers want to keep more of their 
money. They don't want to be sending it to DC for programs that 
outlived their usefulness, programs they have never heard of, programs 
that they don't want.
  So we have the opportunity now to go in and claw back some of that 
money, draw a red line right through the middle of those programs in 
that budget document and make these savings permanent.
  Should we do that? Absolutely. We should be doing that.
  That is why you are seeing Republicans here in the Senate choose to 
move forward on the rescission package that will save $9 billion out of 
this year's budget. And you know, as you think about it, budgets are 
10-year windows so you are not going to see those items next year or 
the next or the next. So you are going to compound those savings.
  Nine billion dollars each year in that 10-year budget--those savings 
mount up, and it is what the American people are wanting to see us do, 
to get rid of some of this reckless spending.
  Now there are some good examples of programs that we are going to 
draw that red line through those programs and eliminate them from this 
budget document. There is $1.1 billion for the Corporation of Public 
Broadcasting.
  Now, this is an organization that funds NPR and PBS. And what we 
know--think about NPR. They have been pushing a leftwing ideology using 
the taxpayers' money for years. And my colleague from Louisiana Senator 
Kennedy talks some about Katherine Maher, who is NPR's CEO, and the 
things that she has had to say about President Trump.
  She has called him all sorts of names. Now, she is not somebody that 
is neutral, and she is not somebody that wants to give you a point and 
a counterpoint. She has an opinion, and she is using your tax dollars 
to spread her opinion far and wide.
  One of the things that they did ahead of the 2020 election, NPR 
refused to cover the revelations about Hunter Biden's laptop and his 
overseas business deals. And at that time, NPR's leadership had this to 
say:

       We don't want to waste the listeners' and readers' time on 
     stories that are just pure distractions.

  Now, that was their opinion. They are entitled to that opinion, but 
they are not entitled to take the taxpayers hard-earned money and spend 
it to push their opinion.
  As we now know, they were wrong--they were wrong.
  Now, the rescissions package that is coming before us also cuts 
billions of dollars in foreign aid spending that really does nothing to 
promote American values and interests around the globe. Here are a few 
of these things.
  There is a $4 million item for ``sedentary migrants'' in Colombia. 
That is their term. That is the line item--$4 million for ``sedentary 
migrants'' in Colombia.
  There is $3 million for an Iraqi version of ``Sesame Street.''
  There is $1 million for voter ID efforts in Haiti; $500,000 for 
electric buses in Rwanda; $6 million for ``Net Zero Cities''--that 
means no carbon emissions--``Net Zero Cities'' in Mexico; and $2.1 
million for ``climate resilience'' in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
  I could stand here for hours and go through some of the ridiculous, 
absurd items that are listed and the amounts of your money that you 
have earned and you have sent to Washington, DC, to be spent on God 
knows what.
  So it is important that we look at this, and, yes, we are going to 
make reductions in spending in the appropriations process, but do you 
know what? Doing these cuts helps to push this forward.
  You know, there is also some money in this rescission package that is 
going to be removed from some of these international organizations that 
work against our interests.
  Now, all during COVID, we heard about the World Health Organization 
and how the World Health Organization was covering up for China, and 
they were going to be certain that they covered for China, and we would 
not know the truth about what happened with COVID.

[[Page S4356]]

  So in this document, we are going to remove $135 million from the 
World Health Organization, and from the U.N. Human Rights Council, $8 
million. The reason to do this? They support dictators, they support 
repressive regimes, and they are demonizing our ally Israel.
  These are wise decisions to be made about how we spend their money. 
And do you know what? It is common sense. As I have had Tennesseans say 
to me, it is about time that we start to make these reductions. We know 
that Tennesseans support these cuts. The American people support these 
cuts.
  This is about fiscal responsibility. It is about thinking about our 
kids and our grandkids and what kind of country they are going to 
inherit. What are we going to leave for them?
  You know, running up this kind of debt--I think it is so important to 
remember what Admiral Mullen, who was then Chief of Staff over at the 
Pentagon, said in July of 2010.
  He was asked: What keeps you up at night? What do you think is the 
biggest threat?
  His reply to that reporter--significant--he said: The greatest threat 
to our freedom is our Nation's debt.
  It is time for us to stop the out-of-control spending. It is time for 
us to begin to turn this around and reduce what the Federal Government 
spends.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, all Americans can take great pride in our 
Nation's generosity that has saved millions of people around the world 
from starvation and disease, and our government Agencies coordinating 
aid efforts should be eager to share details about how their use of 
taxpayer money makes the world a better place. Yet, over the past 
decade, USAID repeatedly rebuffed my request for information, using 
intimidation and shell games to hide where money is going, how it is 
being spent, and why.
  As a result of my oversight, I learned that the U.S. Agency for 
International Development, or USAID, is a rogue bureaucracy operating 
with little accountability and even sometimes at odds with our Nation's 
best interests.
  What warranted such secrecy and stonewalling? Here is just some of 
USAID's questionable spending that I uncovered: Money intended to 
alleviate economic distress in war-torn Ukraine was spent sending 
models and designers on junkets to New York City and fashion weeks in 
Paris and London at a cost of more than $203,000, $148,000 went to a 
pickle maker, a dog collar manufacturer fetched $300,000, and a custom 
carpet manufacturer collected $2 million.
  Elsewhere, $20 million was awarded to Sesame Workshop, which produces 
``Sesame Street,'' to create content for Iraq. Two million dollars went 
toward promoting--get this, folks--promoting tourism to Lebanon--a 
nation that our very own State Department warns against traveling to 
due to the risks of terrorism and kidnapping.
  Yes, folks, 2 million bucks for tourism to Lebanon when we are 
saying: Don't travel there.
  Also, $67,000 was spent to feed edible insects to children in 
Madagascar, and over $800,000 was sent to China's notorious Wuhan 
Institute of Virology to collect coronaviruses.
  What exactly was our International Development Agency developing at 
China's Wuhan Institute of Virology? Well, if the CIA, the FBI, and 
other experts are correct that the COVID virus likely originated from a 
lab leak, USAID may have had a hand in a once-in-a-century pandemic 
that claimed the lives of millions.
  There is no shortage of other questionable USAID projects, but 
President Trump is putting an end to this deep state operation.
  The foreign assistance programs that do advance American interests 
are now being administered under the watchful eye of Secretary Marco 
Rubio. This includes projects previously supported by USAID that were 
caring for orphans and people living with HIV.
  Imagine how much more good work like this could be done with the 
dollars that instead financed fashion shows, supported ``Sesame 
Street'' programs in Iraq, or ended up at China's Wuhan Institute.
  Overseas projects without merit are being ended, and the tax dollars 
that were paying for them will be refunded if the Senate passes the 
rescissions bill.
  It also cancels taxpayers' subsidies to public broadcasting. Too 
often, these programs are partisan propaganda. And you don't have to 
take my word for it. A National Public Radio senior editor recently 
confessed, and I will quote this editor's words, not mine:

       It's true NPR has always had a liberal bent.

  He admits the organization has zero--zero--Republicans in editorial 
positions. Come on, folks, even CNN has Scott Jennings to roast the 
loony liberal lunatics on that failing network.
  NPR has the right to say whatever the heck they want, but they don't 
have a right to force hard-working Americans to pay for their political 
propaganda being masked as a public service.
  Defunding this nonsense is causing a lot of squealing from the big 
spenders around here. Washington insiders are more upset at this effort 
to stop wasteful spending than at the misuse of taxpayer dollars. In 
fact, saving tax money is such a crazy concept in Washington that 
Democrats are threatening to shut down the entire government if this 
bill passes. It says a lot about the other side's priorities when they 
are willing to take hostage funding for veterans and senior citizens to 
prevent $9 billion in unnecessary waste, fraud, and abuse from being 
trimmed from our $7 trillion annual budget. The interest that we are 
paying on our debt alone is costing nearly $3 billion every single 
day--every day.
  If we are ever going to get serious about our debt crisis, Congress 
needs to pass a rescissions bill like this every single week--every 
week.
  Folks, the simple truth is, if you can't find waste in Washington, it 
is because you simply are not looking. With our national debt now 
exceeding $37 trillion, the real question we should be asking isn't why 
is government spending now being scrutinized, but, rather, why did it 
take so long?
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Curtis). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.