EDITORIAL: No time for Senate to waste on DOGE spending cuts
by Las Vegas Review-Journal · Las Vegas Review-JournalRepublicans typically talk a good game about spending restraint and the value of fiscal responsibility. But when they now have the chance to buck the prevailing Beltway culture — even symbolically — will they seize the opportunity? We’ll know this week.
In June, the House GOP used its narrow majority to pass a rescission package that includes $9.4 billion in spending cuts recommended by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Congressional passage of the proposal would allow the House and Senate to “claw back” money previously appropriated. Many of the cuts involve spending on foreign aid. Others center around funding for government-run broadcasting.
Upon House approval, the measure moved to the Senate, where the upper chamber has until Friday to get the proposal to President Donald Trump’s desk or the spending stands. Several Republican senators demand to tinker with the package in an effort to protect favored programs. Any delays threaten to undermine the entire effort because the House would then have to quickly approve the amended package.
“The Friday deadline looms,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told The Hill this week. “We’re encouraging our Senate partners over there to get the job done and to pass it as-is. … I’ve urged them, as they always do, to please keep the product unamended, because we have a narrow margin, and we’ve got to pass it.”
The speaker is an optimist. While it would indeed be preferable for the Senate to approve the cuts as they were recommended, expecting the various interests at play to stay hands-off is not realistic. On Tuesday, Republicans reinstated proposed cuts to a program that dates to the George W. Bush era and is intended to help fight the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. Other senators are lobbying to soften the cuts to public broadcasting.
The perfect mustn’t be the enemy of the good. Senate Republicans must do their best to keep the bulk of the package together, but they must ultimately approve some version of the cuts when they vote on Wednesday. Whatever emerges should be quickly sent back to the House, where Speaker Johnson will need to herd his cats for a second time in order to send the proposal to the Oval Office for Mr. Trump’s signature.
Nine billion dollars in savings won’t cure the nation’s spending addiction. But more rescission packages are on the table, and the symbolism remains important. If majority Republicans — who consistently promise voters that they stand for fiscal sanity — don’t have the courage to sanction even the tiniest reductions in federal spending, why are they in Washington?