WASHINGTON — The White House released President Donald Trump’s 2026 budget proposal Friday, hoping to slash, if not eliminate, spending on many government programs. It seeks a sweeping restructuring of the nation’s domestic priorities, reflective of the president’s first 100 days in office and sudden firing of federal workers.
Trump’s plan aims for steep cuts to child care, disease research, renewable energy and peacekeeping abroad, many already underway through Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, all while pumping up billions for the administration’s mass deportation agenda.
The budget drafters echo Trump’s promises to end “woke programs,†including preschool grants to states with diversity programs. They reflect his vow to stop the “weaponization of government†by slashing the Internal Revenue Service, even as critics accuse him of using the levers of power to punish people and institutions he disfavors.
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Overall, it’s a sizable reduction in domestic accounts — some $163 billion, or 22.6% below current year spending, the White House said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks Thursday as President Donald Trump, right, listens during a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington.
At the same time, the White House said it will rely on Congress to unleash $375 billion in new money for for the Homeland Security and Defense departments as part of Trump’s package of tax cuts and spending reductions.
Budgets do not become law but serve as a touchstone for the upcoming fiscal year debates. Often considered a statement of values, this first budget since Trump’s return to the White House carries the added weight of defining the Republican president’s second-term pursuits, alongside his party in Congress.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the plan showed fiscal discipline given the problems of persistently high budget deficits. The budget released on Friday did not, in fact, include a forecast on government borrowing.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said the cuts could ultimately be more extreme than what the administration proposed, noting that the budget doesn’t provide funding levels for programs such as Head Start.
“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 said.
The budget seeks to cut discretionary spending by 7.6% next year, but includes a 13% increase in national security spending.
The State Department and international programs would lose 84% of their money and receive $9.6 billion, a cut that reflects the existing efforts by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, of N.Y., second from right, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., right, arrive Wednesday with other House and Senate Democrats for an event to mark 100 days of President Donald Trump’s term on the steps of the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington.
The Housing and Urban Development Department would get a $33.6 billion cut, while the Health and Human Services Department would receive $33.3 billion less and the Education Department’s spending would be reduced by $12 billion.
The Defense Department would get an additional $113.3 billion and Homeland Security would receive $42.3 billion more.
The IRS and FBI would lose money, while the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program would be ended. There would be $980 million less for college students in work-study programs, as well as similarly sized cuts for adult education and instruction for learning English.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would lose almost $3.6 billion under the plan, while the National Institutes of Health would face a steep cut of almost $18 billion. The budget would eliminate more than $15 billion for infrastructure-related programs tied to climate change and $1.3 billion from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The White House budget plan arrives as Trump unilaterally imposes what could hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases in the form of tariffs, setting off a trade war that has consumers, CEOs and foreign leaders worried about a possible economic downturn.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget, headed by Russell Vought, a chief architect of Project 2025, provided contours of a so-called skinny version of topline numbers only, regarding discretionary spending.
Project 2025 was a sweeping blueprint from the 2024 campaign season from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to slash the federal workforce and dismantle federal agencies
Administration officials said a fuller budget will come soon with plans to address the drivers of the annual deficit.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters April 10 just after House Republicans narrowly approved their budget framework at the Capitol in Washington.
The nation’s estimated $7 trillion-plus federal budget has been growing steadily, with annual deficits fast approaching $2 trillion and the annual interest payments on the debt almost $1 trillion.
That’s thanks mostly to the spike in emergency COVID-19 pandemic spending, changes in the tax code that reduced revenues and the climbing costs of Medicare, Medicaid and other programs, largely to cover the nation’s health needs as people age. The nation’s debt load, at $36 trillion, is ballooning.
Democrats are prepared to assail Trump’s budget as further evidence that the Republican administration is intent on gutting government programs that Americans depend on.
Congress is already deep into the slog of drafting of Trump’s big bill of tax breaks, spending cuts and bolstered funds for the administration’s mass deportation effort — a package that, unlike the budget plan, would carry the force of law.
But deep differences remain among the Republicans, who are trying to pass that big bill over the objections of Democrats.
“We are awaiting some final calculations on a few of the tax components, and we expect to be able to complete that work on a very aggressive schedule,†Johnson said.
It’s Congress, under its constitutional powers, that decides the spending plans, approves the bills that authorize federal programs and funds them through the appropriations process. Often, that system breaks down, forcing lawmakers to pass stopgap spending bills to keep the government funded and avoid federal shutdowns.