(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump asked Congress for deep cuts to domestic agencies and a boost to the military in a preliminary outline of his 2026 budget request.
The president’s budget calls for $557 billion in non-defense spending next year, which represents a cut of $163 billion from current levels. National security funding would increase to $1.01 trillion, a 13% increase from the previous year.
Known as the skinny budget because of its lack of detail, the document is a new president’s first opportunity to outline his vision for the size and scope of the federal government. But Trump’s version was even thinner than usual, omitting baseline economic and interest-rate projections, which are typically a feature of budget proposals submitted by the White House in prior administrations.
There was also no set of forecasts for government debt, deficits or tax revenue in the document. Also excluded: any projections related to entitlement programs — headlined by Social Security and Medicaid — which are large drivers of overall federal spending.
While rarely enacted in full by Congress, the budget request helps to kick off the annual appropriations process. That process in recent years has seen partisan battles that repeatedly featured threats of, or actual, partial government shutdowns.
The record defense budget would fund the Golden Dome missile defense project, shipbuilding and nuclear modernization, border security among its top priorities. It includes a 3.8% military pay raise.
The Department of Homeland Security, central to Trump’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, increase border security and deport undocumented individuals, would see its budget rise by nearly 65% in the plan.
On the domestic side, Trump is proposing a 22.6% cut in spending for the 2025 fiscal year. The proposal would slash environmental and renewable energy programs as well as initiatives designed to address racial disparities, with the Environmental Protection Agency and Energy Department seeing deep reductions. Trump is also asking lawmakers to cancel $15 billion in former President Joe Biden’s signature infrastructure law for renewable energy programs.
The White House previewed the budget with a series of talking points that highlighted Trump’s use the spending plan as social policy document. Proposed reductions in early childhood education, housing, science and foreign aid were branded as “Cuts to Woke.” The elimination of $3.5 billion in refugee assistance came under the heading “Defunding the Open Border.” Climate, environment and renewable energy programs would be slashed on the premise of “Ending the Green New Scam.”
Foreign aid and diversity and inclusion programs are also targeted for elimination or dramatic reductions. Trump proposes cutting about $5 billion from the National Science Foundation, and eliminating some grants at NOAA, the agency that forecasts weather and monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditions.
The document calls for federal block grants to be eliminated or consolidated, and envisions additional significant cuts at the Education Department — which Trump aims to eventually eliminate — as well as the National Institutes of Health, and Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The US Institute of Peace would be fully shuttered, as would the Minority Business Development Agency, Voice of America and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.
The president has vowed not to touch benefits, but said he will go after fraud and abuse in the system; some Republican lawmakers have proposed cutting Medicaid as part of an effort to offset the costs of Trump’s ambitious plans to extend and expand his tax cuts, which are set to expire.
The contours of Trump’s budget proposal illuminate the extent of his efforts to rein in spending though congressional action, on top of the slew of executive measures he has attempted to implement. Elon Musk’s Department of Government of Efficiency teams have canceled contracts, pushed out federal workers and dismantled entire agencies.
Trump appointed Musk to slash federal spending, who has largely made those moves without the express approval of Congress. Many actions have been challenged in court, and Musk has scaled back his initial ambition of cutting $2 trillion in spending to $150 billion.
The budget illustrates that DOGE’s effort would not ultimately result in significant deficit savings. It proposes to hold all non-emergency discretionary funding flat at $1.613 trillion when almost $120 billion in defense funding is added via Trump’s tax bill. Overall cuts are attributed to emergency funding, such as that for natural disasters, which can easily increase in the wake of storms, flood and fires.
The Trump plan also illustrates the limits of savings from cutting agency operating budgets and personnel in a federal budget dominated by giant entitlement programs as federal debt payments increase from interest rates that are notably higher now than in the years prior to the pandemic.
The skinny budget will be followed by a more detailed request to lawmakers in the coming weeks. Congress will ultimately determine the spending levels for fiscal year 2026 in appropriations bills that are subject to presidential approval.
Any final spending plan for regular agency budgets will need some Democratic support to pass the Senate, one of the few opportunities the minority party has to exert some leverage while Republicans have unified control over the federal government.
The Trump annual budget proposal is separate from a measure that Republicans recently passed on their own — that so-called budget resolution covers the tax-cut plan along with some spending cuts over the longer haul. GOP lawmakers are working to pass that “reconciliation” bill in the coming months.
—With assistance from Justin Sink and Derek Wallbank.
(Updates with details in the budget request throughout)
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