During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) warned her colleagues about the impacts to Congressional authority if President Trump's rescissions package passes.
00:00Thank you very much Chair Collins and thank you for your leadership in convening this very important hearing because let's be honest we are at a crossroads right now this committee is hard at work as we round out our final budget hearings and seek to negotiate bipartisan funding bills.
00:19I am pleased with the progress we're making and hope our productive conversations result in bipartisan markups just as we did in the previous two years.
00:30After Congress failed to pass full year bills in the FY25 it is so important that we pass full year spending bills that deliver the investments that our communities need and this hearing today asks a very important question will Congress stand up and protect its constitutional power of the purse and will this committee band together to finally say enough is enough and show bipartisanship still matters.
01:00Or will we for the first time ever pass an entirely partisan rescissions package and jeopardize this bipartisan work.
01:09I hate to be blunt but that is the question that is at the heart of this first rescissions request which would gut bipartisan investments in foreign assistance reliable local news and high quality educational programming.
01:23To my colleagues after our negotiations are done sometimes hard fought negotiations and we thank each other for the bipartisan effort and tell folks back home what we secured will we let the president then come in and rip that work to shreds.
01:42I certainly hope not because I am truly proud of the bipartisan work that we do do on this committee and I know all of you are as well.
01:51I see how personal it is when you advocate for the research hub in your district or for the upgrades to your local military base or I hear passionate arguments to rebuild a bridge that your communities rely on or support rural areas that are at risk of being cut off.
02:10Or I hear really thoughtful debates from this committee about how we strengthen America's role in the world support small businesses and farmers and tribes and respond to disasters.
02:21And when that discussion is over we don't just fund the red states when you have the majority and the blue states when we have the majority.
02:30We prioritize programs and projects no matter where they are based on what members on both sides advocate for.
02:39Do I agree with every item and every spending bill? No.
02:42I don't think any member of this committee would say they do.
02:45But that is what it means to be a part of a compromise and build bipartisan bills for the good of the country.
02:54This is true of every bill we do.
02:57Each of us knows we are voting for items that are vital to our colleagues just as much as we are voting for priorities that are vital to all of us.
03:07And I have offered to the chair and others in this room to do what this committee has always done.
03:13Consider bipartisan resisions in our bills through the annual process which is the right way to do it.
03:21But the partisan package before us today cuts to the very heart of the work we do and the very ability of this committee to do it.
03:32None of us would sit here and agree to bipartisan bills knowing their partners were just going to gut that deal with rescissions.
03:40I hope each of us thinks about that today.
03:42And I hope we will consider the genuine damage these cuts would cause as well.
03:47If President Trump and Director Vogt get their way and Republicans pass this package,
03:52they will not only gut the heart of compromise that this committee is built around,
03:57but zero out long-standing bipartisan investments.
04:01They will rip away funding that supports over 1,500 local public TV and radio stations.
04:08Rural communities will be the hardest hit, not to mention our kids.
04:12There is a reason the American people support continuing these investments by a two-to-one margin.
04:19Local news gives people information relevant to their daily lives.
04:24What community events are coming up, how the school board is preparing for the next year,
04:29weather and market reports for our farmers, not to mention the emergency alerts when a disaster strikes.
04:36When Hurricane Helene battered North Carolina, the local public radio station was the only source of information about the latest developments for many people.
04:48Talk to any parent. They will warn you.
04:50If Republicans' cuts end up canceling free, high-quality programming that is thoughtfully developed to get our kids thinking and to grow their curiosity,
05:03there is an alarming amount of low-quality junk to fill that void.
05:08Content that is instead carefully engineered to keep kids watching and shorten their attention spans.
05:15Trump also wants Congress to surrender America's leadership on the world stage with drastic cuts to long-standing bipartisan foreign policy investments this committee has made.
05:28Global health programs that protect Americans by stopping infectious diseases before they ever reach our shores.
05:35U.N. treaty obligations that don't just affect America's credibility and leadership, but also counter the Chinese government as it works to increase investments and influence.
05:48And investing in humanitarian aid and economic development pays off for our nation by promoting stability and democracy and strengthening key relationships and a lot more.
06:00We can debate the scale of our efforts, but stripping this funding out months after enacting it doesn't serve our interests, especially when direct or vote won't specify which bipartisan priorities will be cut.
06:15Perhaps the only silver lining of this package is the fact that the administration even bothered to send it and acknowledge our laws and the authority of Congress instead of flagrantly breaking the law,
06:27something it has done relentlessly under the directorship of director vote.
06:31But let's not kid ourselves.
06:33This vote does not represent a path back to lawful behavior.
06:38When director vote continues to, as he says, keep all options on the table when it comes to ignoring the law,
06:46every single one of us should be deeply alarmed by the lawless course the administration is charting here,
06:53illegally impounding hundreds of billions of dollars, ignoring provisions of our appropriations law,
07:01including pulling down the website detailing how they spend taxpayer dollars in direct defiance of the law that requires that,
07:10cherry picking what emergency funding would be spent.
07:13And let's not forget, we have yet to get a detailed agency spend plans for this fiscal year showing how taxpayer dollars are being spent.
07:24Even now, director vote is advocating to cut Congress out entirely through the absurdly lawless idea of a pocket rescission.
07:34Given that track record, there is no doubt, no benefit of the doubt the Trump administration gets for coming here.
07:41And there is no fixing this package that is a direct threat to continuing our long track record of bipartisan work and holding bipartisan markups this summer.
07:54To my colleagues, if we do not reject this rescission package outright and seriously defend the authority of Congress and work of this committee,
08:05we will find very quickly our bills become a lot less important.
08:11And our time is consumed by more and more rescission packages to undo the work that we just wrapped up.
08:17I really worry in a time when we should be coming together to ensure the safety, economic growth and security of this country.
08:27Instead, we will race forward with rescission package after rescission package.
08:31It will be PBS and PEPFAR that get chopped this time, maybe family planning, investments in public education, public schools next.
08:39But, you know, I think we are all proud to be on this committee, on this Appropriations Committee.
08:44This is a powerful role where we can do a lot of good for our communities, but it is not powerful just because.
08:53That power comes from our ability to work together to write bills that actually become law
09:01and our willingness to assert our authority so those bills are enacted as intended.
09:08If we choose to ignore that, if we fail to defend that, this committee can and will lose its power.
09:16And we are getting perilously close to that line.
09:19When I first came to Congress, when I first sought and asked to join this committee for all the reasons all of you joined this committee,
09:25one of the hot button issues at that time was the line item veto.
09:30President Clinton was seeking to have it and Chairman Byrd and this committee, this committee were organizing against it together.
09:40I was asked, should a Democratic Senate help a Democratic president rip up the bills it worked to pass?
09:47And I said, no, that is not how this should work.
09:52I wanted to be on this committee to help my state, my constituents, not to weaken or surrender those responsibilities to any president.
10:02I hope my colleagues understand that is that is as true for me today as it was then.
10:07And if my colleagues agree, which I believe many do, then the course we need to take is clear.
10:13We have to reject this package outright and then focus squarely on the job in front of us, writing bipartisan bills for FY26.
10:24In the regular course of writing our bills, we can and we will consider whether there are targeted rescissions we can agree on, just as we always do.
10:35But we must have that conversation together.
10:39If our funding bills must be bipartisan, then our funding cuts have to be as well.
10:45Otherwise, the entire appropriations process will break down.
10:49So I am very pleased today to have this opportunity to discuss why these cuts would be harmful to our communities.
10:56But I really want all of my colleagues to fully appreciate why opening this door, even a crack,
11:04would be very harmful to this committee and to Congress as well.
11:09And what it would mean for the work we all hope to do together.
