House Rules Committee advances Senate amendment to HR 4, the Rescissions Act of 2025, amid debate over public broadcasting and foreign-aid cuts

The House Committee on Rules on Thursday advanced a rule to send HR 4, the Rescissions Act of 2025, back to the House floor with the Senate amendment, setting up final congressional action on a package that would rescind roughly $9,000,000,000 in unobligated federal funds.

The rule cleared the committee after floor managers said the package is a lawful, limited pullback of unspent funds and proponents insisted it is a step toward reining in what they described as waste. "We're here to get this legislation across the finish line into the president," the committee chairwoman said at the meeting's outset. "The money that we are clawing back in this rescissions package is the people's money," she added.

Why it matters: The package touches multiple policy areas — including public broadcasting, development assistance and global health — and several members warned the cuts are being proposed without sufficient program-level detail. Committee Democrats and some Republicans questioned whether Office of Management and Budget (OMB) decisions would shift authority over spending away from Congress.

Committee debate and top-line figures

Representative Diaz-Balart, who testified for the appropriations committee, told the Rules Committee the Senate amendment would rescind $9,000,000,000 and argued the package was intended to "prudently realign" spending to core national-security priorities. "The rescission package proposes to pull back $2,500,000,000" from the development assistance account in fiscal year 2025, he said, and the measure also includes cuts to global health programs,…