President Donald Trump unveiled his fiscal year 2026 discretionary budget request on Friday, proposing an unprecedented 22.6% reduction in non-defense spending while boosting defense funding by 13% to a record $1.01 trillion. The budget, which administration officials describe as a “paradigm shift,” aims to eliminate what they call “woke” and “weaponized” programs while redirecting resources toward national security, border protection, and traditional conservative priorities.

The budget proposal would slash $163 billion from non-defense discretionary programs, with nearly every major federal agency facing significant reductions. According to the White House’s funding request, only the departments of Homeland Security, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, and the Social Security Administration would be spared from cuts, while others face reductions of at least 15% to their current budgets.

The most severe reductions target agencies and programs focused on environmental protection, scientific research, and social services. The Environmental Protection Agency and National Science Foundation would see their budgets cut by more than half, with the National Institutes of Health losing $18 billion, approximately 38% of its current funding.

The Education Department would lose $12 billion, or 15% of its current funding, as the Trump administration openly states its intention to begin shutting down the Department of Education. While maintaining current funding levels for Title I and special education programs, the budget would transform these into simplified block grants to states. Historically, block grants have led to less accountability and a higher risk that funds will not reach the students who need them most.

Potential Consequences of Block Grants

• States could redirect funds away from public schools serving low-income communities toward other priorities, such as voucher programs or charter schools, with little federal oversight.
• Protections and services for students with disabilities, currently guaranteed under IDEA, could become inconsistent or disappear entirely depending on state decisions.
• The shift could result in significant disparities between states, leaving students in some regions with fewer resources and supports than others.

If Title I is block granted and accountability is reduced, analyses suggest up to 180,000 teaching positions could be lost, impacting 2.8 million students in low-income communities. This would lead to larger class sizes, fewer specialized supports, and diminished educational opportunities for the most vulnerable children.

The proposal eliminates the $890 million English Language Acquisition program and cuts all $70 million for Teacher Quality Partnerships grants, which have often been used to diversity the teacher workforce. At the same time, the budget adds $60 million for charter schools, bringing total charter school funding to $500 million.

The Office for Civil Rights would see a 35% budget reduction.

Trump’s budget takes direct aim at climate-related initiatives, with administration documents referring to these as the “Green New Scam“. The proposal would cancel over $15 billion in Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding designated for renewable energy, carbon dioxide removal, and related technologies.

The Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy office would see its budget cut by nearly 75%. The budget also eliminates U.S. contributions to the Global Environment Facility and Climate Investment Funds, which the administration characterizes as “globalist entities that fund ‘Green New Deal’ policies abroad”.

Environmental justice programs at the EPA would lose $100 million, with the administration claiming these initiatives “enabled a witch hunt against private industry” and gave “taxpayer dollars to political cronies”.

In stark contrast to the domestic spending cuts, Trump’s budget proposes a 13% increase in defense spending to $1.01 trillion and a nearly 65% boost to the Department of Homeland Security. However, a significant portion of these increases, at least $325 billion, would come through the budget reconciliation process rather than the traditional appropriations process.

While the VA will receive a 4% boost in programmatic funding, the VA will undergo significant workforce cuts. The plan calls for a reduction in force to “cut bureaucratic overhead,” targeting around 80,000 roles at the department. 

The proposed increase will include a $5.4 billion increase, with about $2 billion earmarked for accelerating the VA’s electronic health record (EHR) modernization and $3.3 billion for medical care improvements, though details on the latter are not yet specified. The budget anticipates nearly $500 million in savings from cuts to legacy IT systems and $37 million from diversity program cuts and planned staff reductions.

ProPublica reports that according to one DOGE document, there was a proposal to consolidate operations, close up to 17 hospitals (though VA leadership denies closures are official policy), and introduce artificial intelligence tools to handle benefits claims.

Despite facing an overall 24% budget reduction, NASA would receive increased funding specifically for human space exploration programs focused on the Moon and Mars. The budget allocates more than $7 billion for lunar exploration and introduces $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs.

The proposal would end the Mars Sample Return mission and retire the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule after the Artemis III mission, transitioning to “more cost-effective, next-generation commercial systems” for future lunar missions. The Gateway program would also be terminated, though components might be repurposed for other missions.

The budget document released Friday represents only a “skinny” version of the full budget proposal, with more detailed figures expected in the coming weeks. Congressional appropriators will use these details to draft funding bills for fiscal year 2026, though any final funding measure will require Democratic support to pass the Senate.

Senior officials from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have indicated that the executive branch might unilaterally decide against spending funds appropriated by Congress, even if lawmakers reject proposed budget cuts. This stance echoes past White House actions, notably within its initial 100 days, which involved pausing congressionally approved funding. Those actions resulted in numerous lawsuits and court directives to release the withheld money.

One official affirmed that “impoundment,” the practice of withholding appropriated funds, remains a potential strategy. However, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 generally forbids the executive branch from withholding funds for policy-related reasons. Despite this law, the Trump administration had previously contended that the Act is unconstitutional and had proceeded with withholding funds, leading to legal challenges. 

The Impoundment Control Act establishes specific procedures the President must follow to propose deferrals (temporary delays) or rescissions (cancellations) of congressional funding, with rescissions requiring congressional approval. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has historically reviewed and ruled on the legality of such executive actions.

The budget document promotes this as “revitalizing federalism” and “resetting the proper balance between Federal and State responsibilities”.

The proposal consolidates 18 Education Department grant programs into a single “K-12 Simplified Funding Program,” transforms federal rental assistance into a state-based formula grant, and reduces EPA categorical grants by over $1 billion to “encourage States to achieve primary enforcement authority”.

The Fiscal Year 2026 “skinny budget” proposes a significant $674 million reduction to the program management budget of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The administration asserts that these cuts are aimed at “non-statutory, wasteful, and woke activities,” including eliminating DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives and certain health equity-focused and Inflation Reduction Act-related outreach, while maintaining funding for “core Medicare and Medicaid operations” and preserving direct benefits for recipients.

Beyond this specific cut, the budget signals a broader agenda to devolve responsibility for health and social programs, notably Medicaid, to the states. This increased state flexibility could exacerbate existing disparities in healthcare access and coverage levels nationwide, depending on individual state decisions and financial capacities.