Free Republic

The House gave final approval to President Donald Trump’s request to claw back about $9 billion for public broadcasting and foreign aid early Friday as Republicans intensified their efforts to target institutions and programs they view as bloated or out of step with their agenda. The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won’t be the last. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda. The House passed the bill by...

Our country cannot get its fiscal house in order unless and until it starts slowing the explosion of Medicare spending.The budget reconciliation measure Congress recently passed includes some important reforms designed to help reduce entitlement spending. But any realistic assessment of the nation’s fiscal position reinforces why Washington must go much further in reducing spending than the half-measures enacted in recent weeks.In March, as lawmakers were beginning debate on the “big, beautiful bill,” the Congressional Budget Office released its annual version of the “Long-Term Budget Outlook,” which features economic and budgetary projections for the next three decades. The CBO report...

It’s finally passed and heading for President Trump's desk for signature. The recissions package has made it over the finish line in a 216-213 vote in the House. It had to be bounced back from the Senate, which passed it on a 51-48 vote, as the upper chamber had made slight adjustments to it during the vote-a-rama process. The GOP has slim majorities in Congress, but they’re getting the Trump agenda through. 216-213:House approved the Trump WH's 1st round of DOGE spending cuts, $9B in foreign aid & public broadcasting from previously approved funding by Congress. Republicans Fitzpatrick (PA) &...

Senate Republicans blasted through Democratic and internal opposition to pass President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar clawback package early Thursday morning. The final vote tally was 51-48, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining every Democrat in voting against it. The package will now be sent to the House, which has until Friday to pass it. The $9 billion rescissions bill tees up cuts to "woke" spending on foreign aid programs and NPR and PBS that Congress previously approved. Republicans have pitched the bill as building on their quest to root out waste, fraud and abuse...

While headlines chase shadows and social media churns with conspiracies about Jeffrey Epstein, something far more serious—yet underreported—is unfolding: America just ran a budget surplus in June.That’s right — the U.S. government, long buried under record-breaking deficits, posted a $27 billion surplus, the first for that month in eight years. And it wasn’t a fluke. It was driven largely by one policy move: tariffs.Back in April, critics warned that Donald Trump’s newly announced “Liberation Day” tariffs would tank the economy.Instead, those tariffs have proven to be a financial engine.Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to declare a...

The U.S. government posted a surplus in June as tariffs gave an extra bump to a sharp increase in receipts, the Treasury Department said Friday. With government red ink swelling throughout the year, last month saw a surplus of just over $27 billion, following a $316 billion deficit in May. That brought the fiscal year-to-date deficit to $1.34 trillion, up 5% from a year ago. However, with calendar adjustment, the deficit actually edged lower by 1%. There are three months left in the current fiscal year. A 13% increase in receipts from the same month a year ago helped bridge...

We’re told that passing President Trump’s $9.4 billion rescission package – the one that would eliminate much of the funding for NPR and PBS (they can hold telethons) and some modest cuts in foreign aid – is a tough sell in the Senate. Apparently, the Cookie Monster desperately needs tax dollars.’ It passed the House so the Senate needs to toughen up and get it done. If they can’t cut the budget by 0.13% or the deficit by 0.5% we are sunk.Fortunately, Trump is tightening the screws ahead of the July 18 deadline. We will keep you posted.

President Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill is one step closer to becoming law — and reshaping policy from Medicaid to taxes. The House passed the massive spending bill on Thursday afternoon in a 218-214 vote. Every Democrat voted against the bill, along with two Republicans: Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. The final passage came after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke for roughly eight hours and 45 minutes in opposition to the bill, breaking the record for the longest House floor speech in American history. The bill now heads to Trump's desk for signing, which...

If you like all the Science NASA has done since 1961, then wave it all goodby. NASA budget cut to the lowest since 1961 - before there was a manned space program. No more Rovers, probes, [ even 99942 Apophis probes cut, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis ]. There are no private entities that can or will pick up the slack. Cuts to Hubble and to Webb will leave them orbiting junk. Coupled with the possible collapse of SpaceX from 47's vengeance feud with Musk, the US will no longer have a space program - civilian or military. These twin disasters in the making...

With the passage of the BBB by the Senate today, one of the issues I was interested in was what happened to plans to eliminate Medicaid funding for illegal immigrants. And it's actually a bit difficult to figure out what is going to happen now.So the backstory here is that the feds haven't agreed to directly fund Medicaid for illegal immigrants anywhere. However, some states have rolled out versions of Medicaid which cover some illegal immigrants using state funds. California in particular has expanded Medical to cover all immigrants who meet the income threshold. However, that expansion cost the state...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed on Friday a budget that pares back a number of progressive priorities, including a landmark health care expansion for low-income adult illegal immigrants, to close a $12 billion deficit. It’s the third year in a row the nation’s most populous state has been forced to slash funding or stop some of the programs championed by Democratic leaders. Lawmakers passed the budget earlier in the day following an agreement of a $321 billion spending plan between Newsom and Democratic leaders. But the whole budget will be void if lawmakers don’t send him legislation to make it...

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told Senate Republicans to expect to see the legislative text of the budget reconciliation package on Friday evening and then to vote at noon Saturday to begin debate on President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Several GOP senators, however, refused to say whether they would vote to proceed to the bill, including Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he’s a hard “no” on the legislation because it includes a provision to raise the debt limit by $5 trillion.

In the linked MSNBC interview, Mandini emphasizes his commitment to protect the Jewish community from anti-Semitic hate crime attacks.

Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed two budget proposals Wednesday, calling them partisan and reckless, as legislators near a deadline to reach a deal and avoid a state government shutdown. Her action comes after House Republicans indicated last week that a budget negotiated by the state Senate and Hobbs’ office lacked the needed votes in its chamber. The House instead introduced a budget to keep state operations running beyond June 30 and buy more time for negotiations. The chamber passed a separate budget earlier this month. “It cuts tuition, raises pay for law enforcement, fixes critical roads, and reins in...

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright is slamming the Biden administration for what he calls an “absolutely infuriating” last-minute spending spree, revealing that more than $90 billion in green energy loans were pushed through by the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office in the weeks between President Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection and his January inauguration. In an interview with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matt Boyle, Wright detailed the results of a newly completed review of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, revealing that “more than $90 billion in loans were closed or committed in the 76 days between...

Groups like this fixate on the number of individuals with health insurance coverage, regardless of whether those individuals engage in fraud.The left is ignoring potential fraud to pursue its own ideological objectives.That’s the shorter version of a series of analyses regarding the House-passed reconciliation bill released in recent days by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The organization, and other leftist groups like it, fixate solely on the number of individuals with health insurance coverage — regardless of whether those individuals engage in fraud, or even whether those individuals belong in this country.The Kaiser analyses create state-by-state breakdowns of projected changes in...

NATO members are rushing to show President Donald Trump they’re shoveling money into defense — some with a dose of creative math — as Russia’s battle with Ukraine grinds on and war threatens to consume the Middle East. The group’s summit this week in The Hague, which Trump plans to attend, will attempt to set a deadline for members to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense. Trump has complained about European defense budgets since his first term, claiming the U.S. gets ripped off by countries that rely on Washington for a security blanket. The way allies approach this at...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is up for re-election next year. She may be vulnerable to primary challenges within her party, and some polls show Republicans within striking distance of her in the general election setting. She underperformed in 2022, when former Congressman and current EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin gave her all she could handle. At a recent hearing on Capitol Hill, Hochul demonstrated her ignorance about a string of heinous crimes committed by illegal immigrants who were shielded and protected by her reckless 'sanctuary' policies. Rep. Elise Stefanik, who may run for governor in 2026, made the most of...

During a Tuesday Fox News appearance, Paul, a Republican with strong libertarian convictions, told Mornings with Maria host Maria Bartiromo that he was not voting for the bill. 'I'm enthusiastically for the tax cuts, I voted for them in 2017 I helped to formulate those tax cuts in 2017,' Paul stated. 'I will not be the deciding vote against this, I promise you that. If I'm the deciding vote against this, they will negotiate with me.' 'Right now they are not negotiating with me, because they don't think they need me, so I will not be the deciding vote. The...

These days, it seems that a mysterious group called “the CBO” rules the world. Or at least Washington. Unfortunately, they’re not very good at predicting things and their bad calls can lead to bad policy results. The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) predict what will happen with spending, tax revenues and deficits from new bills and congressional budgets. They have made headlines of late with their absurd warning that the Trump tax bill to extend the 2017 tax cuts and other reforms, like eliminating taxes on tips, would add some $4.6 trillion to the debt...