House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-MD) and other Freedom Caucus lawmakers told Breitbart News they believe the first step to fiscal responsibility is finalizing the House-passed austerity package.
The House on Thursday passed H.R. 4, the Rescissions Act of 2025, a bill to claw back $9.4 billion in spending that has already been approved. The bill rescinds $8.3 billion in foreign aid and $1.1 billion for public broadcasting.
Congress established the Budget Act of 1974 to allow for the president and Congress to collaborate on clawing back already appropriated spending.
The rescissions package, like budgetary reconciliation, is a powerful tool as it allows legislation to pass through Congress using only a simple majority of each chamber.
This also represents a rare opportunity for President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to rein in waste, fraud, and abuse, especially considering the last successful use of the tool was in 2000.
“The real importance of the rescissions bill, aside from the $9 billion in savings for American taxpayers, which is not insignificant, is that it’s the first step in a journey toward, you know, fiscal responsibility. And again, it’s going to test whether or not some in the Republican Party who run on fiscal responsibility actually vote for fiscal responsibility,” Freedom Caucus Chairman Harris told Breitbart News.
He cheered ending funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as well as purging waste, fraud, and abuse from various foreign aid programs.
Harris noted that there are many opportunities to rein in wasteful spending should Congress be successful in passing the rescissions package through the Senate.
He said, “I think we have to concentrate on a lot of the non-governmental organizations that get funded and then look at a lot of the wasted money — really, in all the agencies — on things like climate change that actually harm our economic stature in the world — again, especially versus China — by impeding our ability, for instance, to compete on energy generation.”
Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) described the $9 billion rescission package as a “softball that’s being pitched right across the plate.” He said that it is Congress’s duty to eliminate wasteful spending discovered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“Just think about all those things that they [DOGE] listed, like $3 million for Iraqi Sesame Street, and $6 million in supporting media organizations and civic life of Palestinians, and $3 million for sexual reproductive health in Venezuela, and 2.1 million for climate resilience in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and East Africa. And, I could go on and on, and yet, the American people were appalled to actually see in print that this is where their tax money was going,” Harris said.
He added, “This is an opportunity for us in the House and the Senate to step up to the plate and pass this thing, and then invite the White House [to] bring on the second package, and hopefully it’ll be even stronger than this first. But I think it’s a great opportunity for us to start taking some action to go with all of the talk.”
For other lawmakers, they believe it is fulfilling the mandate the American people gave President Donald Trump to eliminate weaponized government.
“Voters last November handed President Trump a broad mandate to reduce the size of the federal government, and they expect Congress to advance that promise. The cuts included in this rescissions legislation are the first step, and I fully expect Congress will continue working closely with President Trump toward restoring fiscal sanity by eliminating the woke, weaponized, and wasteful federal spending that has crippled our nation,” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) told Breitbart News in a written statement.
Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) said, “We see how the left continues to use them to fund their own pet projects that don’t do any good for the American people as a whole. And, you know, just like we’re talking with NPR and PBS in today’s, you know, competitive environment and media, there’s no reason for the government to have a TV outlet or a radio outlet.”
Stutzman questioned why the federal government should send a “million dollars” to “Timbuktu for some sort of lesbian, gay, bisexual movement program,” when the government should focus on helping communities such as his district in northeastern Indiana.
“Ray Dalio came in and spoke to us a couple of months ago and basically warned us and said, you know, if a recession hit or economic growth doesn’t happen, you know, we’re toast,” Stutzman said, referring to the famous American hedge fund manager.
Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK), although he cheered the legislation’s movement through Congress, cautioned that there needs to be a “leverage point” to pressure lawmakers to keep passing rescission packages or work on another reconciliation bill.
The Oklahoma Republican noted that 38 House Republicans, representing committee leaders such as House Budget Committee Vice Chair Lloyd Smucker (R-PA) and Freedom Caucus members, urged the Senate in a letter not to water down the House-passed Big Beautiful Bill’s efforts to cut spending.
The letter asked that the Senate match any additional tax cuts “dollar-for-dollar by real, enforceable spending reductions,” which was set in the budget resolution for crafting the Big Beautiful Bill.
Brecheen said, “We made decisions in our strength to keep us out of our weakness. Everybody wants to eat the cheesecake; nobody wants to eat the broccoli. And, so we forced in that blueprint everybody had to have a little of both.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
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