Rescissions: Saving Taxpayers $9.4 Billion in Wasteful Spending

by: Congressman Mark Alford (MO-04)

What’s Going on in Washington– This week, House Republicans passed what’s known as a rescissions package. That’s beltway speak for clawing back taxpayer funding that was previously approved by Congress. We are saving taxpayers $9.4 billion by rescinding wasteful spending that was identified by DOGE.

There are two main areas this legislation cuts wasteful spending–woke foreign aid programs and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

Our foreign aid programs, especially USAID, have spent billions of your taxpayer dollars on projects that undermine core American interests. DOGE identified hundreds of insane USAID projects that most Missourians would find offensive, including putting radical DEI, transgender, and Green New Scam agendas above our national interests. Just a few examples include $3 million for sexual reproductive health in Venezuela, $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities,” and millions to EcoHealth Alliance, which was involved in research at the Wuhan lab that unleashed COVID on the world. This rescissions package ensures our foreign aid protects American interests–not partisan political agendas.

Similarly, NPR and PBS have been left-wing propaganda machines for far too long. That’s why Republicans are cutting their federal funding. For example, PBS aired a children’s program featuring drag queens and produced a movie celebrating sex change for a child. This is not the so-called educational programing our tax dollars should be funding. I spent 30 years in the news business competing against public broadcasting, and it’s high time PBS and NPR are forced to compete in the marketplace.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: at $36 trillion and growing, our national debt is the single greatest existential threat to the survival of the American experiment. I’m the first to recognize that $9 billion is a drop in the bucket when considering the massive debt and deficits driven by Washington’s spending addiction, but it’s a start. Combined with the $1.6 trillion in savings from the One Big, Beautiful Bill and our work on the Appropriations Committee to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, House Republicans are making serious strides toward fiscal responsibility.