The Trump administration on May 2, 2025, sent Congress a preliminary fiscal year 2026 budget request that proposed sharply reducing many non-defense federal programs while directing more resources toward defense, border enforcement and several other administration priorities.
The document was a preliminary or "skinny" budget rather than an enacted spending law. Under the Constitution, Congress controls federal appropriations, so the White House request represented President Donald Trump's recommendations to lawmakers, not spending changes that automatically took effect. The official Office of Management and Budget request said a fuller fiscal plan and detailed appropriations language would follow.
OMB proposed cutting base non-defense discretionary budget authority by about $163 billion, or 22.6%, from fiscal year 2025 enacted levels. The White House described that as the lowest level of non-defense discretionary spending since 2017.
At the same time, the administration said total defense resources would rise by 13% to about $1.01 trillion and proposed a $175 billion border-security investment. An important qualification was that part of those increases was expected to come through a separate budget reconciliation measure rather than ordinary annual appropriations.
Why the $1 trillion defense figure drew Republican criticism
The structure of the proposal led to disagreement even among Republican senators. The administration's roughly $1 trillion defense figure depended partly on additional reconciliation funding. Without that supplemental money, some lawmakers argued that the regular defense appropriations level would effectively remain flat.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she had "serious objections" to what she described as a proposed freeze in defense funding as well as proposed reductions or eliminations involving the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, TRIO education programs and biomedical research. Collins also emphasized that Congress, not the executive branch, ultimately holds the power of the purse in the federal appropriations process.
Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, then chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also objected to relying on reconciliation funding to produce the larger defense total, arguing that the base defense request would lose purchasing power after inflation.
Democrats criticized the domestic reductions from a different direction. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the Democratic vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, argued that reductions to housing, education, public health, scientific research and other programs would harm families and weaken U.S. competitiveness. Those assessments were political responses to the proposal rather than established effects of an enacted budget.
What the proposal protected or increased
Although the plan called for sweeping reductions across the non-defense budget, the administration said it would preserve or increase funding in several areas. The request maintained funding for Title I assistance for schools serving large numbers of low-income students and proposed keeping special-education funding at fiscal year 2025 levels while consolidating several programs.
It also proposed additional resources for veterans' health care, disaster response, wildfire suppression, aviation and rail safety, charter schools, defense and border enforcement. Pell Grants were not among the major programs targeted for elimination in the preliminary request.
Foreign aid and State Department programs
Foreign affairs would have undergone some of the largest changes. The proposal sought major reductions and consolidations across State Department and foreign-assistance accounts, while directing more money toward programs the administration said more directly advanced U.S. strategic interests.
Among the proposed reductions were approximately $1.6 billion from Food for Peace, about $3.2 billion from international disaster and refugee-related assistance accounts, roughly $1.6 billion from peacekeeping missions and about $2.46 billion from State Department and USAID operations.
The administration also proposed ending federal funding for the National Endowment for Democracy and reducing or eliminating many U.S. contributions to international organizations. These proposals were presented as part of the administration's broader reassessment of foreign aid; Congress would still have had to approve the relevant appropriations changes.
At the same time, the request proposed a new $2.9 billion America First Opportunity Fund for strategic foreign-policy investments involving partners including India and Jordan, repatriation efforts and programs intended to counter competitors such as China. It also sought an increase of roughly $2.8 billion for the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.
Education funding
The Education Department was targeted for substantial reductions and consolidation. The preliminary proposal called for combining 18 K-12 grant programs into a new $2 billion formula grant, while maintaining Title I funding.
Seven Individuals with Disabilities Education Act programs would also have been consolidated, although the administration proposed maintaining the overall special-education funding level from 2025.
Other proposals included eliminating TRIO and GEAR UP funding, reducing Federal Work-Study and ending Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants. The request also proposed eliminating $64 million in federal support for Howard University while increasing charter-school funding by $60 million to $500 million.
The White House argued that the restructuring would reduce federal bureaucracy and give states and school districts more flexibility. Opponents argued that eliminating or reducing the programs would remove support relied upon by disadvantaged students. Those competing assessments were part of the congressional debate over the proposal.
Health and biomedical research
The proposal also sought substantial changes at the Department of Health and Human Services, including deep reductions at the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC's discretionary funding would have fallen sharply, with the administration proposing consolidation or reductions involving infectious-disease, opioid, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infection and other public-health programs. An existing CDC funding overview provides background on earlier federal spending in some of those areas.
The NIH would have faced a reduction of nearly $18 billion under the preliminary plan. The proposal also envisioned reorganizing its research institutes and centers, including eliminating or merging several entities. Similar restructuring ideas had previously appeared in an internal budget document examined by CNN.
The administration said the reorganization would concentrate federal research on chronic disease and other priorities. Researchers, health organizations and lawmakers who opposed the reductions warned that they could diminish biomedical and public-health research capacity.
Heating and utility assistance
The administration proposed eliminating the roughly $4 billion Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which helps millions of lower-income households with heating and cooling costs.
The White House argued that the program was unnecessary in part because states maintain utility shutoff protections. Energy-assistance advocates responded that those protections vary considerably by state, are often seasonal and generally do not erase the underlying bills households owe. Collins specifically identified LIHEAP as one of the proposed eliminations to which she objected.
Housing assistance
The budget proposed major restructuring of federal rental assistance. It sought to replace several Department of Housing and Urban Development rental-aid programs with state-based assistance grants, a change the administration estimated would reduce federal spending by more than $26 billion.
The plan also proposed time limits on rental assistance for some able-bodied adults and elimination of the $1.25 billion HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which provides grants to states and local governments for affordable housing projects.
Housing advocates argued that transferring more responsibility to states while reducing federal funding could result in fewer households receiving assistance. The proposal itself did not enact those changes; congressional legislation and appropriations would have been required.
Energy, climate and environmental programs
The proposal called for eliminating or reducing numerous clean-energy, climate and environmental programs that the administration opposed.
Among the proposed reductions were billions of dollars associated with clean-energy and electric-vehicle programs, including funding originating in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. The administration also proposed reductions to renewable-energy and energy-efficiency programs at the Department of Energy and to programs supporting wind and solar development on public lands.
The Environmental Protection Agency would have lost funding for several climate and environmental-justice initiatives. The administration characterized many of those programs as outside its priorities; supporters of the programs argued they addressed pollution, climate risks and unequal environmental burdens.
Nuclear energy and cleanup
The Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy was slated for a reduction of more than $400 million under the request, largely through reductions the administration described as non-essential research.
The plan also proposed hundreds of millions of dollars in reductions to nuclear-waste cleanup programs while maintaining funding for cleanup of the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state. Other cleanup activities would have received less funding under the proposal.
National parks and scientific research
The National Park Service's operating budget would have been reduced by roughly $900 million, with additional reductions affecting construction, historic preservation and recreation programs. The administration also proposed transferring responsibility for some smaller park sites to state governments.
NASA Earth-science missions, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate research and National Science Foundation research programs also faced cuts.
The National Science Foundation was among the agencies targeted for especially large reductions, with proposed discretionary funding substantially below its 2025 level. The administration said it wanted NSF to focus federal support on higher-priority research and eliminate programs associated with DEI and climate initiatives.
Smaller agencies and programs proposed for elimination
The preliminary budget proposed eliminating funding for more than a dozen smaller agencies and programs, including the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AmeriCorps, Institute of Museum and Library Services, U.S. Institute of Peace and Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation.
The administration also sought to eliminate the Job Corps program and the Senior Community Service Employment Program. The White House argued that the programs had not produced sufficient results and, in the case of Job Corps, cited safety and management problems. Supporters of those programs disputed the case for eliminating them and argued that they provide training and employment opportunities to populations that may have difficulty finding work.
Areas where the administration proposed more spending
Veterans' health care
The request proposed approximately $3.3 billion in additional veterans' medical-care funding, covering services at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities and care purchased from private providers. The administration said about $1.1 billion of that increase would support efforts addressing veteran homelessness.
Aviation and rail safety
The budget requested $13.8 billion for Federal Aviation Administration operations, including hiring and compensation for air traffic controllers and telecommunications modernization. That represented an increase of roughly $359 million.
It also proposed $5 billion for replacement and modernization of radar and other National Airspace System infrastructure, about $824 million above the prior level, as well as a $400 million increase for rail-safety and infrastructure grants.
Space exploration
The request shifted NASA priorities toward human exploration of the Moon and Mars while reducing other agency programs. It proposed more than $7 billion for lunar exploration and about $1 billion in new Mars-focused investments, even as Earth science and other NASA activities faced reductions.
Charter schools
Federal charter-school funding would have increased by $60 million to $500 million under the proposal, reflecting the administration's emphasis on school choice and reducing the federal role in education.
What happened next
The May 2 document was only the first stage of the fiscal year 2026 budget process. On May 30, 2025, OMB released a more detailed fiscal year 2026 budget appendix and supporting materials.
Neither the preliminary request nor the later detailed documents could by themselves determine federal spending. Congress was responsible for writing and passing appropriations legislation, and lawmakers from both parties signaled from the outset that they intended to modify or reject parts of the White House proposal.
That distinction was central to understanding the May 2025 announcement: the document showed the Trump administration's preferred direction for federal spending, but every proposed cut, consolidation or increase dependent on annual appropriations remained subject to congressional action.
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