Donald Trump released his budget proposal for the 2026 fiscal year on Friday, which asks Congress to slash more than $163 billion in domestic spending on everything from education funding to medical research to environmental protection.
If enacted, the president’s proposed budget would leave domestic spending at its “lowest level in the modern era,” The New York Times reported.
Among the cuts demanded in Trump’s budget: $18 billion from the National Institutes of Health and $3.5 billion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will hamper medical research and efforts to prevent chronic diseases.
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The draconian budget also calls for axing the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps low-income Americans pay their heating and cooling bills; slashing $900 million from the National Park Service, which is already short-staffed due to co-President Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency cuts; and stripping more than $1.5 billion from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which would make weather forecasting less accurate—and everyone in the path of a storm less safe.
Trump also wants to cut $980 million from the federal work study program that helps students pay for college, calling it a “handout to woke universities;” $75 million from the Child Care Access Means Parents in School program, which helps provide childcare services to parents attending college or university; and $49 million from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which helps advocate for millions of students with disabilities to get access to public education.
But Trump is also asking for more money for the Secret Service, which has to protect him during frequent trips to his personal properties so he can golf; a $43.8 billion increase to the Department of Homeland Security to help him carry out his evil immigration policies; and an additional $134 million for “fair trade and trade enforcement” to help carry out his economically destructive tariffs.
Sycophantic House Speaker Mike Johnson loves the proposed budget, calling it a “bold blueprint that reflects the values of hardworking Americans and the commitment to American strength and prosperity.”
“Our country cannot continue to bear the hard consequences of years of runaway spending under Democratic leadership, and this budget makes clear that fiscal discipline is non-negotiable,” Johnson added. “President Trump’s plan ensures every federal taxpayer dollar spent is used to serve the American people, not a bloated bureaucracy or partisan pet projects.”
However, even some powerful Republican committee chairs are not pleased, and are already saying some of the budget proposals are DOA in Congress—which has to pass a funding bill by Sept. 30 or else face a government shutdown.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine derided the budget as “late” and lacking “key details,” adding that she objects to the budget’s “proposed freeze in our defense funding.”
Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, had similar complaints.
“Look, no president—and administrations—don’t get to dictate what’s going to happen here,” Cole told reporters on Thursday ahead of the budget’s release. “Congress is not the Army. And the president is the president, but not the commander in chief of Congress.”
Democrats are also on offense.
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut called Trump’s budget a “roadmap of destruction,” saying in a statement, “This is not a budget. It is an all-out assault on our nation’s families, small businesses, and communities in every part of the country.”
And Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Trump’s budget is a blatant effort to cut benefits for everyday Americans.
“President Trump has made his priorities clear as day: he wants to outright defund programs that help working Americans while he shovels massive tax breaks at billionaires like himself and raises taxes on middle-class Americans with his reckless tariffs,” Murray told The Associated Press.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would not vote for a funding bill that includes Trump’s proposed cuts.
“Democrats are going to fight this heartless budget with everything we’ve got,” Schumer saidcalling the budget “a betrayal of working people from a morally bankrupt president.”
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