WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) delivered remarks on the Senate floor detailing the need for the U.S. Senate to pass the $9 billion rescissions package to eliminate wasteful government spending.

Click here to download Senator Blackburn’s remarks on the Senate floor. 

REMARKS AS PREPARED

America’s Current Fiscal Path Is Unsustainable, and President Trump Has a Mandate to Rein in Wasteful Spending

Mister President, when I talk to Tennesseans, one of the biggest concerns they have for our nation’s future is our national debt.

After four years of reckless, far-left spending under the Biden administration, it now sits at $37 trillion.

That’s $108,000 for every American citizen.

Today, we are spending more on interest payments on the debt than what we spend to fund our entire military. 

Tennesseans and the American people know that this path is unsustainable.

That’s why they returned President Trump to the Oval Office with a mandate to rein in wasteful spending.

And that’s exactly what he has done.

Congress Must Permanently Eliminate Wasteful Spending

Since Inauguration Day, this administration has identified more than $190 billion in potential savings across the federal government—on everything from unused office space to far-left DEI programming.

This is a victory for the American people.

But while President Trump can stop these funds from going out the door, it is Congress’s responsibility to claw them back and make these savings permanent.

Otherwise, a future Democrat President could open the floodgates of wasteful spending once again.

That’s why Republicans are moving forward with a rescissions package this week that will save American taxpayers $9 billion.

With our national debt at unsustainable levels, we must be careful stewards of taxpayer dollars. That means eliminating obvious waste that serves no benefit for the American people.

Rescissions Package Will Eliminate Reckless Spending on Biased Public Media

That’s exactly what this bill accomplishes, and this is only the beginning of the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate reckless spending.

It eliminates $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

This is the organization that funds NPR and PBS—which have pushed left-wing ideology on the taxpayers’ dime for years.

NPR’s CEO, Katherine Maher, has called President Trump a “fascist” and “deranged racist.”

Ahead of the 2020 election, her outlet refused to cover the revelations about Hunter Biden’s laptop and overseas business deals—which turned out to be entirely true.

As NPR’s leadership put it at the time: “We don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”

Rescissions Package Will Cut Billions in Foreign Spending That Undermines American Values

The rescissions package also cuts billions in foreign spending that does absolutely nothing to promote American values and interests abroad:

$4 million for “sedentary migrants” in Colombia;

$3 million for an Iraqi version of Sesame Street;

$1 million for voter ID efforts in Haiti;

$500,000 for electric buses in Rwanda;

$6 million for “Net Zero Cities” in Mexico;

$2.1 million for “climate resilience” in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

And on and on.

At the same time, the package eliminates $1 billion in funding for international organizations that work against American interests, including:

$135 million for the corrupt World Health Organization, which covered for Communist China throughout the COVID pandemic;

And $8 million for the UN Human Rights Council, which supports dictators and repressive regimes while demonizing our ally, Israel.

Americans Support Fiscal Responsibility 

All in all, these savings are just common sense.

The American people support these cuts. They want fiscal responsibility. They want a future where their children and grandchildren do not have to bear the burden of crippling debt. And this rescissions package is an incredible first step in taking on this problem.