Senate Finally Passes DOGE Cuts, Here Are The Two Republicans Who Voted Against It

It was a long night at the Capitol for U.S. Senators.

In the early hours on Thursday, the Senate voted to pass the Department of Government Efficiency spending cuts.

The legislation included major cuts to foreign aid and the complete shutdown of government-run news agencies such as NPR.

The legislation passed with all Republicans voting for the spending cuts except for twoThey were Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

CNN had more details on the DOGE Cuts getting enough votes:

President Donald Trump is one step closer to having Congress officially sign off on a slice of his Department of Government Efficiency’s spending cuts after Senate Republicans agreed in the early hours of Thursday morning to cancel $9 billion in funding to foreign aid and public broadcasting.

The package now returns to the House for final approval, where it must pass by a Friday deadline mandated under the budget rules Republicans are using to move the package without Democratic votes. If successful, it will then head to Trump’s desk, where he’s expected to sign the partisan push to claw back federal dollars that Congress had already sent out the door.

While most Senate Republicans firmly embraced the spending cuts and are pressing for more, some within the party raised concerns over the White House push, arguing that it set a harmful precedent undermining congressional authority. Two Republicans opposed the measure on the final vote: Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The final tally was 51-48.

Roughly $8 billion will be taken from congressionally approved foreign aid programs as part of the White House’s efforts to dismantle the US Agency for International Development. Another $1.1 billion comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund NPR and PBS.

The Senate passed the bill after an extended voting session on amendments that stretched from Wednesday afternoon into the early hours of Thursday morning and lasted over 12 and a half hours. Democrats offered a number of amendments attempting to strike provisions from the legislation, but none were adopted.

The bill will now go to the House for a final vote:

Some lawmakers are still concerned over the cuts not being enough, per The Washington Examiner:

It took weeks of vote-wrangling for congressional Republicans to near final passage of $9 billion in DOGE-inspired cuts, or only 0.10% of the $7 trillion budget.

The arduous saga, filled with centrist complaints and some last-minute deal-cutting, doesn’t bode well for conservatives who have their sights on far more ambitious efforts under President Donald Trump, who has promised to erase the $2 trillion a year deficit.

“It tells me we should’ve pressed for a lot more spending reductions in the One Big Beautiful Bill,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI). He was among the fiscal hawk holdouts who ultimately voted to favor Trump’s signature tax law despite projections that it would hike the deficit.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), a centrist emboldened by his recent retirement announcement, compared the $9 billion clawback, known as a rescission, to “collecting bottles on the side of the road.”

The White House request, which centers on foreign aid and public broadcasting dollars, was narrowly cleared the GOP-led Senate Thursday despite two GOP defectors.

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