Maine Sen. Susan Collins was among three Republicans who voted Tuesday against starting debate on President Trump's plan to clawback more than $9 billion from foreign aid and public broadcasting.
Collins opposed moving the $9.4 billion rescissions package out of the Appropriations Committee, which she chairs, and to the Senate floor. She also joined Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — two other members of the powerful budget-writing committee — in voting against starting debate on the bill. Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent, joined all Democrats in opposing the procedural motions.
But Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote, allowing GOP leaders to continue pursuing final approval in both the House and Senate before the rescissions package expires on Friday.
In a statement, Collins said she supports reducing wasteful spending and has supported numerous rescissions in the past. But she accused the Office of Management and Budget of failing to provide basic information on the proposed cuts.
“The rescissions package has a big problem — nobody really knows what program reductions are in it," Collins said. "That isn’t because we haven’t had time to review the bill. Instead, the problem is that OMB (Office of Management and Budget) has never provided the details that would normally be part of this process."
Collins raised those objections directly with OMB director Russell Vought during a June 25 hearing on the rescissions package. But in her statement on Tuesday, Collins said Congress still doesn't know how the administration would implement the cuts.
"But to carry out our Constitutional responsibility, we should know exactly what programs are affected and the consequences of rescissions," she said.
Collins said she was pleased the administration backed off plans to cut $400 million from a global AIDS prevention program. But she added that "excessive cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would harm local programming and accessibility to popular programs." Maine Public receives CPB funding to support local programming and to support the infrastructure that carries the state's emergency alert system.
Earlier in the day, King called the proposed cuts to foreign aid programs a "total abdication of America's engagement with the world." The independent highlighted cuts to two global health programs that aim to prevent the spread of AIDS and measles.
"Just those two programs together, those two U.S. AID projects, have saved 36 million lives," King said. "And we are talking about cutting them off. That's not only bad policy, it's cruel. It's cruel and it undermines the credibility of this country."
Republicans later agreed to reinstate the $400 million to the AIDS program in order to win over some leery GOP members.
This week's votes on the $9.4 billion in cuts is part of a broader struggle between Congress and the Trump administration over spending authority.
Under the Constitution, Congress controls the federal purse strings by passing appropriations bills. But administrations can request to cut or rescind funding for specific programs.
The Trump administration is also testing that balance of power between branches through it's months-long push to freeze, eliminate or withhold congressionally approved spending in other ways. But in his floor speech, King accused many of his Republican colleagues of caving to pressure from the White House and giving away that authority.
"I believe that it shreds the appropriations process — the Appropriations Committee and, indeed, this body becomes a rubber stamp for whatever this administration wants," King said. "The deeper problem . . . is that I believe this is another step in Congress' abdication of constitutional authority which has dramatically accelerated since January."
