The US Senate on Thursday approved a package of spending cuts proposed by President Donald Trump that would cancel more than $9 billion in funding for foreign aid programmes and public broadcasting.
The cuts were proposed by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) and largely affect USAID-administered programmes designed to assist foreign countries suffering from disease, war and natural disasters.
The plan also eliminates all $1.1 billion the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was due to receive over the next two years. CPB funds National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service, which Republicans have accused of anti-conservative bias.
The bill now goes back to the House for final approval, with legislators up against the clock. Congress, which had already allocated the money, has to approve the cuts by Friday or the White House must spend the cash as originally intended.
The $9 billion at stake is small in the context of the $6.8 trillion federal budget and represents only a tiny portion of all the funds approved by Congress that the Trump administration has held up while it has pursued sweeping cuts.
The cuts would overturn bipartisan spending agreements most recently passed in a full-year stopgap funding bill.
Mr Musk originally said Doge would save taxpayers $2 trillion but the agency now acknowledges it has saved taxpayers $190 billion – though factcheckers suspect even that claim as dubious.
Despite the unpopularity of the proposal in some sections of both parties, the Republican-led Senate passed the measure with 51 votes for and 48 against in a session that lasted more than two hours beyond midnight.
Republicans have indicated more packages codifying the Doge cuts were still to come. Mr Musk, who left the government in May, was recruited by Mr Trump to lead the task force after the tech billionaire spent $290 million helping him get elected.
The version of the text passed in June by the House of Representatives sought to eliminate $400 million in funding allocated to health programmes, including the Pepfar global Aids relief fund created by then-president George W Bush.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham told AFP that while he was a "big fan" of the soft power approach of foreign aid, he said the bill was consistent with Mr Trump's promises to cut spending.
"When you start spending money on a bunch of junk and liberal programmes disconnected from the purpose of the aid package, it makes it difficult on a guy like me," he said.
