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Trump asks Congress to cut $163B in non-defense spending, ax dozens of programs
From left to right, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attend a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump released a budget request Friday that would dramatically slash some federal spending, the initial step in a monthslong process that will include heated debate on Capitol Hill as both political parties work toward a final government funding agreement.
The proposal, for the first time, details how exactly this administration wants lawmakers to restructure spending across the federal government — steep cuts to domestic appropriations, including the elimination of dozens of programs that carry a long history of bipartisan support, and a significant increase in defense funding.
Trump wants more than 60 programs to be scrapped, some with long histories of assistance to states, including Community Services Block Grants, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities within the National Institutes of Health, and the Sexual Risk Avoidance and Teen Pregnancy Prevention programs.
Congress will ultimately decide how much funding to provide to federal programs, and while Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, regular funding bills will need Democratic support to move through the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster.
White House budget director Russ Vought wrote in a letter that the request proposes shifting some funding from the federal government to states and local communities.
“Just as the Federal Government has intruded on matters best left to American families, it has intruded on matters best left to the levels of government closest to the people, who understand and respect the needs and desires of their communities far better than the Federal Government ever could,” Vought wrote.
The budget request calls on Congress to cut non-defense accounts by $163 billion to $557 billion, while keeping defense funding flat at $893 billion in the dozen annual appropriations bills.
The proposal assumes the GOP Congress passes the separate reconciliation package that is currently being written in the House, bringing defense funding up to $1.01 trillion, a 13.4% increase, and reducing domestic spending to $601 billion, a 16.6% decrease.
Many domestic cuts
Under Trump’s request many federal departments and agencies would be slated for significant spending reductions, though defense, border security and veterans would be exempt.
The cuts include:
- Agriculture: – $5 billion, or 18.3%
- Commerce: – $1.7 billion, or 16.5%
- Education: – $12 billion, or 15.3%
- Energy: – $4.7 billion, or 9.4%
- Health and Human Services: – $33 billion, or 26.2%
- Housing and Urban Development: – $33.6 billion, or 43.6%
- Interior: – $5.1 billion, or 30.5%
- Justice: – $2.7 billion, or 7.6%
- Labor: – $4.6 billion, or 34.9%
- State: – $49.1 billion, or 83.7%
- Treasury: – $2.7 billion, or 19%
Increases include:
- Defense: + $113 billion, or 13.4% with reconciliation package
- Homeland Security: + $42.3 billion, or 64.9% with reconciliation package
- Transportation: + $1.5 billion, or 5.8%
- Veterans Affairs: + $5.4 billion, or 4.1%
The budget request also asks Congress to eliminate AmeriCorps, which operates as the Corporation for National and Community Service; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides some funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service; the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences; and the 400 Years of African American History Commission.
What if Congress won’t act on the cuts?
Debate over the budget proposal will take place throughout the summer months, but will come to a head in September, when Congress must pass some sort of funding bill to avoid a partial government shutdown.
A senior White House official, speaking on background on a call with reporters to discuss details of the budget request, suggested that Trump would take unilateral action to cut funding if Congress doesn’t go along with the request.
“Obviously, we have never taken impoundment off the table, because the president and myself believe that 200 years of the president and executive branch had that ability,” the official said. “But we’re working with Congress to see what they will pass. And I believe that they have an interest in passing cuts.”
The 1974 Impoundment Control Act bars the president from canceling funding approved by Congress without consulting lawmakers via a rescissions request, which the officials said the administration plans to release “soon.”
The annual appropriations process is separate from the reconciliation process that Republicans are using to pass their massive tax cuts, border security, defense funding and spending cuts package.
Huge boost for Homeland Security
The budget proposal aligns with the Trump’s administration’s plans for mass deportations of people without permanent legal status, and would provide the Department of Homeland Security with $42.3 billion, or a 64.9% increase.
The budget proposal suggests eliminating $650 million from a program that reimburses non-governmental organizations and local governments that help with resettling and aiding newly arrived migrants released from DHS custody, known as the Shelters and Services Program.
The Trump administration also seeks to eliminate the agency that handles the care and resettlement of unaccompanied minors within Health and Human Services. The budget proposal recommends getting rid of the Refugee and Unaccompanied Alien Children Programs’ $1.97 billion budget. The budget proposal argues that because of an executive order to suspend refugee resettlement services, there is no need for the programs.
A federal judge from Washington state issued a nationwide injunction, and ruled the Trump administration must continue refugee resettlement services.
The budget proposal also calls for axing programs that help newly arrived migrant children or students for whom English is not a first language.
For the Education Department, the budget proposal suggests eliminating $890 million in funding for the English Language Acquisition and $428 million for the Migrant Education and Special Programs for Migrant Students.
Key GOP senator rejects defense request
Members of Congress had mixed reactions to the budget request, with some GOP lawmakers praising its spending cuts, while others took issue with the defense budget.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., outright rejected the defense funding level, writing in a statement that relying on the reconciliation package to get military spending above $1 trillion was unacceptable.
“OMB is not requesting a trillion-dollar budget. It is requesting a budget of $892.6 billion, which is a cut in real terms. This budget would decrease President Trump’s military options and his negotiating leverage,” Wicker wrote. “We face an Axis of Aggressors led by the Chinese Communist Party, who have already started a trade war rather than negotiate in good faith. We need a real Peace Through Strength agenda to ensure Xi Jinping does not launch a military war against us in Asia, beyond his existing military support to the Russians, the Iranians, Hamas, and the Houthis.”
The senior White House official who spoke on a call with reporters to discuss details of the budget request said that splitting the defense increase between the regular Pentagon spending bill and the reconciliation package was a more “durable” proposal.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, wrote the panel will have “an aggressive hearing schedule to learn more about the President’s proposal and assess funding needs for the coming year.”
“This request has come to Congress late, and key details still remain outstanding,” Collins wrote. “Based on my initial review, however, I have serious objections to the proposed freeze in our defense funding given the security challenges we face and to the proposed funding cuts to – and in some cases elimination of – programs like LIHEAP, TRIO, and those that support biomedical research.
“Ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse.”
Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement she will work with others in Congress to block the domestic funding cuts from taking effect.
“Trump wants to rip away funding to safeguard Americans’ health, protect our environment, and to help rural communities and our farmers thrive. This president wants to turn our country’s back on Tribes—and let trash pile up at our national parks,” Murray wrote. “Trump is even proposing to cut investments to prevent violent crime, go after drug traffickers, and tackle the opioids and mental health crises.”
A press release from Murray’s office noted the budget request lacked details on certain programs, including Head Start.
House Speaker Mike Johnson R-La, praised the budget proposal in a statement and pledged that House GOP lawmakers are “ready to work alongside President Trump to implement a responsible budget that puts America first.”
“President Trump’s plan ensures every federal taxpayer dollar spent is used to serve the American people, not a bloated bureaucracy or partisan pet projects,” Johnson wrote.
Spending decisions coming
The House and Senate Appropriations committees are set to begin hearings with Cabinet secretaries and agency heads next week, where Trump administration officials will explain their individual funding requests and answer lawmakers’ questions.
The members on those committees will ultimately write the dozen annual appropriations bills in the months ahead, determining funding levels and policy for numerous programs, including those at the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, State and Transportation.
The House panel’s bills will skew more toward Republican funding levels and priorities, though the Senate committee has a long history of writing broadly bipartisan bills.
The leaders of the two committees — House Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., House ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Senate Chairwoman Collins and Senate ranking member Murray — will ultimately work out a final deal later in the year alongside congressional leaders.
Differences over the full-year bills are supposed to be solved before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, but members of Congress regularly rely on a stopgap spending bill through mid-December to give themselves more time to complete negotiations.
Failure to pass some sort of government funding measure, either a stopgap bill or all 12 full-year spending bills, before the funding deadline, would lead to a partial government shutdown.
This round of appropriations bills will be the first debated during Trump’s second-term presidency and will likely bring about considerable disagreement over the unilateral actions the administration has already taken to freeze or cancel federal spending, many of which are the subject of lawsuits arguing the president doesn’t have that impoundment authority.
