Donald Trump is proposing massive cuts to social programmes like health and education while planning substantial spending increases on defense and the Department of Homeland Security, in a White House budget blueprint that starkly illustrates his preoccupation with projecting military strength and deterring migration.
Cuts of $163bn on discretionary non-defense spending would also see financial outlays slashed for environmental and non-renewable energy schemes, as well as for the FBI, an agency Trump has claimed was weaponised against him during Joe Biden’s presidency. Spending reductions are also being projected for the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
In contrast to the squeeze on discretionary social programmes, the administration is planning a 13% rise – to more than $1tn – in the Pentagon budget, a commitment at odds with Trump’s frequent vows to end the US’s involvement in “forever war” in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The figures for the White House’s so-called “skinny budget” for 2026 represent a 22.6% cut in spending from that projected in the current fiscal year, which ends on 30 September.
They include massive cuts to the National Institutes of Health – which undertakes extensive research on cures for diseases like cancer – as well as for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but provide funding of $500m for the Make America healthy again initiative spearheaded by Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
By contrast, the Department of Homeland Security – which oversees border security – would see its spending boosted by 65% in a graphic illustration of Trump’s intense focus on stemming the flow of migrants into the US.
Non-defense discretionary spending refers to federal money that is reauthorised each year and generally covers areas like public health, transport and education. The latter sector faces cuts of $12bn under Trump’s plan.
But it does not cover the highly sensitive areas of Medicare, Medicaid and social security, which provides healthcare and support for retirees and the poor and which the president has vowed to leave untouched. That has drawn widespread scepticism from Democrats, who accuse the Republican of plotting cuts to the programmes to pay for an extension of Trump’s massive 2017 tax cuts.
The spending clampdown is consistent with the professed goals of Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency” team, also known as Doge, which has infiltrated multiple federal agencies – including the Department of Social Security – in a supposed quest for “waste, fraud and abuse”. Doge’s aggressive onslaught has included the almost total shuttering of USAID, the federal agency for foreign assistance. The budget projections assumes large-scale cuts to foreign aid.
Russell Vought, director of the White House office of management and budget and a proponent of large-scale cuts to the federal workforce, said the plan was intended to tackle “wasteful spending and bloated bureaucracy”.
“At this critical moment, we need a historic budget – one that ends the funding of our decline, puts Americans first, and delivers unprecedented support to our military and homeland security,” he said.
