Trump administration unveils more detailed proposal for steep 2026 spending cuts
The Trump administration on Friday unveiled more details of the president's vision for how to fund the government in fiscal year 2026, expanding on its request earlier this month for steep spending cuts.
The lengthy budget appendix, which stretches to more than 1,200 pages, comes as Republicans in both chambers have pressed the administration for more information about the president's proposed funding cuts.
President Trump is calling for more than $160 billion in cuts to nondefense discretionary spending — amounting to about 22 percent — while requesting a boost to defense dollars.
While presidential budget requests aren't signed into law, they can serve as a blueprint for lawmakers as they begin crafting their funding legislation.
House appropriators will take up the first set of funding bills next week, with subcommittees on military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, rural development, and the Department of Agriculture set to meet to consider the proposals on Thursday.
The White House rolled out Trump's so-called skinny budget about a month ago. It ran 46 pages, and it's not unusual for presidents to first roll out shorter versions of their proposals before releasing more details.
But GOP appropriators said they needed more information about the president's funding wishlist, and budget hawks grumbled at the time about key details missing.
'There needs to be a lot more programmatic detail to write these bills to,' Cole told The Hill ahead of the current congressional recess. 'Their skinny line budget is just that. It's not a full presidential budget.'
'We will just do a better job for them,' Cole said at the time, if appropriators have more guidance from the administration.
The documents released Friday build upon the cuts outlined in Trump's earlier request, which called for double-digit cuts for a list of agencies including the departments of Agriculture, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, and State. The administration is also pushing for Congress to put dozens of programs on the chopping block, including the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, Job Corps, the Community Development Block Grant program and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
However, the administration noted that, for defense programs, the document only contained appropriations language and that a 'separate document containing budget estimates for the Department of Defense will be published in June 2025.'
It also said 'mandatory spending and receipts proposals in this document are limited to those proposals that support the president's 2026 discretionary request.'
The forthcoming funding bills from the GOP-led House are expected to be more partisan in nature than in the Senate, where Democratic votes will be needed to get annual funding legislation across the floor.or.
The bills from the GOP-led House are expected to be more partisan in nature than in the Senate, where Democratic votes will be needed to get annual funding legislation across the floor.
Democrats have already come out in strong opposition to the president's budget request. And there are serious trust issues in the party about eventual negotiations with Republicans on fiscal year 2026 funding as the administration has undertaken a sweeping operation to shrink the size of the government without buy-in from Congress.
'This is a draconian proposal to hurt working people and our economy, and it is dead on arrival in Congress as long as I have anything to say about it,' Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Friday.
'This is not a complete budget,' Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, also said Friday. 'We are supposed to start putting together the funding bills for 2026 next week. If, as expected, House Republicans follow what President Trump has proposed so far, it is not a serious effort to deliver for the American people.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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