President Trump on Friday outlined his 2026 budget request, which would slash domestic spending by almost one-fourth while boosting defense spending by 13%.
The big picture: Trump’s “skinny” budget for the upcoming fiscal year comes as Congress debates a massive tax and spending bill that will have a much greater impact on government funding, economic growth and long-term deficits.
- Read the White House’s letter to Congress here
- The fiscal blueprint aims to reduce discretionary non-defense spending — which doesn’t include programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — by $163 billion from this year, a 22.6% cut.
- That would bring discretionary non-defense spending to its lowest level since 2017, according to the White House.
- For national security spending, Trump will ask for a record $1.01 trillion, a 13% increase, according to the White House.
The intrigue: DEI and “race theory” programs are among those targeted for elimination.
- A senior White House official who briefed reporters on the proposal Friday morning said DOGE’s efforts informed the plan by exposing the degree to which federal government spending is “woke and it is wasteful.”
- “It is dividing us on the basis of race and identity and country, ” the official said.
By the numbers: The $1.7 trillion discretionary budget proposal represents an overall reduction of 7.6%, down from $1.83 trillion, according to the White House.
- Most non-defense entities saw an average budget reduction of about 35%, according to the senior official — with a few exceptions.
- “We protected transportation, we protected Homeland Security, we protected Veterans Affairs and numerous other priorities that the president is intent on spending on,” the official said.
- The. Federal Aviation Administration, for example, would receive a funding boost under the proposal as would charter schools and the Make America Healthy Again initiative.
Zoom in: Funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and what was known as the U.S. Agency for International Development would be starkly reduced.
- Trump is also taking aim at federal grants that were authorized during the Biden administration, including those for “environmental justice” renewable energy projects.
- The so-called “skinny” budget is a pared-back version of the full fiscal ’26 budget blueprint. It did not include deficit targets, revenue assumptions or economic forecasts.
The bottom line: Budgets are designed to be statements of the president’s priorities. The numbers bear only a passing resemblance to the final dollar amounts that Congress ultimately appropriates.
