SCOOP: House Freedom Caucus lays out support for rescissions package eliminating $9.4 billion in federal funds to NPR, PBS, and more

THE LOWDOWN:

• The House Freedom Caucus (HFC) is firmly behind the White House’s rescissions request to Congress, which would finally fully eliminate federal funding to liberal news organizations like National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), multiple members told the Washington Reporter.

• The rescissions package is a priority for the Trump administration, and Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) is confident that it will get passed. If passed, the bill will claw back almost $10 billion in funds from NPR, PBS, and some foreign aid programs.

• The Freedom Caucus’s chairman, Rep. Andy Harris (R., Md.), told the Reporter that today’s vote is a “critical step” to restoring fiscal sanity in America.

• Conservatives who have waited decades for this moment told the Reporter that the news is beyond welcome. “PBS and NPR have been DNC talking-point factories since they passed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967,” Tim Graham, the Executive Editor of NewsBusters, told the Reporter. Graham has been monitoring NPR and PBS for almost four decades.

The House Freedom Caucus (HFC) is firmly behind the White House’s rescissions request to Congress, which would finally fully eliminate federal funding to liberal news organizations like National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), multiple members told the Washington Reporter.

The rescissions package is a priority for the Trump administration, and Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) is confident that it will get passed. If passed, the bill will claw back almost $10 billion in funds from NPR, PBS, and some foreign aid programs.

The Freedom Caucus’s chairman, Rep. Andy Harris (R., Md.), told the Reporter that today’s vote is a “critical step” to restoring fiscal sanity in America.

“The House Freedom Caucus has led the charge in cutting wasteful spending and restoring fiscal sanity in Washington,” Harris said. “The rescissions package is a critical step in reining in out-of-control government waste and putting taxpayers first. Every dollar we save today is a step toward securing America’s economic future.”

More broadly, the HFC under Harris is currently running a social media campaign that makes the caucus’s priorities clear. It’s called “Defend the Taxpayer. Pass the Rescissions.”

“This first rescissions package is a crucial litmus test for Republicans,” Rep. Mark Harris (R., N.C.) told the Reporter. “We all campaigned on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government, so we cannot let this chance slip through our fingers. Then, we must work with the White House to identify billions more in savings to protect American taxpayers and restore fiscal responsibility.”

Likewise, Rep. Ralph Norman (R., S.C.) called the vote a solution to D.C.’s “spending addiction.” Norman told the Reporter that “Washington doesn't have a revenue problem. It has a spending addiction. H.R. 4 represents a generational opportunity to reverse course and put our nation back on a sound fiscal path.”

For some members of the Freedom Caucus, this upcoming vote represents why they ran for Congress in the first place.

“I came to Washington to cut wasteful government spending and shrink the bureaucracy,” Rep. Andy Ogles (R., Tenn.) told the Reporter. “The rescissions package does just that. The American people tasked us with draining the swamp and enacting fiscal restraint.”

“It’s past time for Congress to stand up and defend the hardworking taxpayers who make America the greatest country in the world,” Ogles added. “I will never stop fighting for them as we work to restore the Republic. The first step is to get the rescissions package passed through Congress and sent to President Trump's desk.”

Rep. Eric Burlison (R., Mo.) — another Freedom Caucus member — previously wrote an op-ed in the Reporter outlining why it’s time for Congress to “put up or shut up” and pass the rescissions package.

Texas Rep. Brandon Gill, a Republican, made his position on the rescissions abundantly clear.

“State-sponsored media has no place in America,” Gill told the Reporter. “From the moment NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher exposed herself as a dishonest, left-wing activist in the Oversight Committee, I vowed to spend all of my time ensuring that NPR never gets another cent of taxpayer funding—that day is finally here.”

Conservatives who have waited decades for this moment told the Reporter that the news is beyond welcome.

“PBS and NPR have been DNC talking-point factories since they passed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967,” Tim Graham, the Executive Editor of NewsBusters, told the Reporter. Graham has been monitoring NPR and PBS for almost four decades.

“The law contains language about ‘strict adherence to objectivity and balance,’ which they have never followed. PBS and NPR adored covering Watergate, and Iran-Contra, and labored heavily to ruin the Clarence Thomas nomination to the Supreme Court,” Graham continued.

“With cable news and C-SPAN and so on, the rationale for funding CPB already looked out of date 30 years ago,” Graham said. “But it remained a daily injustice to force conservatives to fund media outlets which dropped rhetorical bombs on them.”

That “injustice” could be rectified as soon as this afternoon.