The Trump White House’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal calls for boosting the U.S. military budget to $1 trillion and increasing funding on immigration enforcement, while cutting $163 billion in spending across the State Department, Department of Education, and Environmental Protection Agency, among other agencies.
The White House’s budget request raises military spending by 13 percent and Department of Homeland Security appropriations by nearly 65 percent to address defense and border security priorities, according to a White House outline of the funding request.
The proposal would allocate $175 billion towards border security, with $43.8 billion specifically geared towards Trump’s mass deportation operation and wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The increased defense spending is intended to better confront China abroad while helping to revitalize the defense industrial base, an urgent priority for defense hawks given rising geopolitical tensions. U.S. troops would get a 3.8 percent raise due to the proposed budget increase, and the U.S. would put more funding into shipbuilding, F-47 jets, space exploration, and developing an American golden dome system.
The budget proposal would also defund some programs associated with left-wing cultural priorities around race and gender, in accordance with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s push to reorient the military back towards the rank-and-file warfighter.
The Trump administration’s budget makes clear that the White House will not be touching Social Security benefits as the federal government attempts to improve the Social Security Administration’s customer service and modernize its technology.
Further, the Trump administration is proposing to increase charter school funding by $60 million while delivering $500 million worth resources to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to pursue his Make America Healthy Again priorities at the agency.
At the same time, the Trump administration is axing $18 billion from the National Institutes of Health and getting rid of $3.6 billion of left-wing or unnecessary HHS programs.
Elsewhere, the White House seeks to cut $8.3 billion of economic and development aid at the State Department to prevent it from funding left-wing priorities worldwide. The White House is also cutting $5.7 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development and $3.3 billion for United Nations missions and programs.
Likewise, the White House proposes cutting $15 billion of Department of Energy programs and $5.7 billion of Transportation Department funding for “Green New Scam” measures from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Total non-defense spending would be cut by $163 billion, a 22.6 percent decrease, through cuts in education, the environment, foreign aid, and elsewhere on programs the administration considers wasteful, “woke,” or best left to states to handle.
“Cutting such spending from the discretionary budget leads to significant savings: the President is proposing base non-defense discretionary budget authority $163 billion–22.6 percent–below current-year spending, while still protecting funding for homeland security, veterans, seniors, law enforcement, and infrastructure,” Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wrote in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R., Maine).
“Over 10 years, this restraint would generate trillions in savings, necessary for balancing the budget,” Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wrote in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R., Maine).
Congressional Republicans are tasked with coming up with their own budget plan and are still hammering out the details of it. Republicans hold the Senate, 53-47, and an extremely tight House majority, complicating their ability to rally around a single budget.