The Trump White House’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal calls for boosting the U.S. military budget to $1 trillion and increasing funding on immigration enforcement, while cutting $163 billion in spending across the State Department, Department of Education, and Environmental Protection Agency, among other agencies.

The White House’s budget request raises military spending by 13 percent and Department of Homeland Security appropriations by nearly 65 percent to address defense and border security priorities, according to a White House outline of the funding request.

The proposal would allocate $175 billion towards border security, with $43.8 billion specifically geared towards Trump’s mass deportation operation and wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The increased defense spending is intended to better confront China abroad while helping to revitalize the defense industrial base, an urgent priority for defense hawks given rising geopolitical tensions. U.S. troops would get a 3.8 percent raise due to the proposed budget increase, and the U.S. would put more funding into shipbuilding, F-47 jets, space exploration, and developing an American golden dome system.

The budget proposal would also defund some programs associated with left-wing cultural priorities around race and gender, in accordance with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s push to reorient the military back towards the rank-and-file warfighter.

Senator Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, criticized the Trump administration’s military budget proposal, calling it insufficient and a continuation of the Biden administration.

“For the defense budget, OMB has requested a fifth year straight of Biden administration funding, leaving military spending flat, which is a cut in real terms. The Big, Beautiful Reconciliation Bill was always meant to change fundamentally the direction of the Pentagon on programs like Golden Dome, border support, and unmanned capabilities – not to paper over OMB's intent to shred to the bone our military capabilities and our support to service members,” Wicker said in a statement.

The Trump administration’s budget makes clear that the White House will not be touching Social Security benefits as the federal government attempts to improve the Social Security Administration’s customer service and modernize its technology.

Further, the Trump administration is proposing to increase charter school funding by $60 million while delivering $500 million worth resources to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to pursue his Make America Healthy Again priorities at the agency.

At the same time, the Trump administration is axing $18 billion from the National Institutes of Health and getting rid of $3.6 billion of left-wing or unnecessary HHS programs.

Elsewhere, the White House seeks to cut $8.3 billion of economic and development aid at the State Department to prevent it from funding left-wing priorities worldwide. The White House is also cutting $5.7 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development and $3.3 billion for United Nations missions and programs.

Likewise, the White House proposes cutting $15 billion of Department of Energy programs and $5.7 billion of Transportation Department funding for “Green New Scam” measures from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Total non-defense spending would be cut by $163 billion, a 22.6 percent decrease, through cuts in education, the environment, foreign aid, and elsewhere on programs the administration considers wasteful, “woke,” or best left to states to handle.

“Cutting such spending from the discretionary budget leads to significant savings: the President is proposing base non-defense discretionary budget authority $163 billion–22.6 percent–below current-year spending, while still protecting funding for homeland security, veterans, seniors, law enforcement, and infrastructure,” Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wrote in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R., Maine).

“Over 10 years, this restraint would generate trillions in savings, necessary for balancing the budget,” Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wrote in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R., Maine).

Congressional Republicans are tasked with coming up with their own budget plan and are still hammering out the details of it. Republicans hold the Senate, 53-47, and an extremely tight House majority, complicating their ability to rally around a single budget.

THIS NEWS ITEM IS PRESENTED BY

Trump White House Proposes $1 Trillion Military Budget, 23 Percent Cut to Non-Defense Spending

The budget proposal would cut $163 billion in non-defense ... READ MORE

A message from Mount Titano Media

This May 26, read the profound words spoken
by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. on Memorial Day, 1884.

"…amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil, our trumpets sound once more a note of daring, hope, and will."

Those fine words, among countless others from the greats who made America, have been lost—and now they are found.

FINDING OUR WORDS: Words That Made America is a collection of some of the most inspiring words spoken by American leaders since our founding, with every speech launched with a prefacing essay by Tracy Lee Simmons, longtime NR contributor and author of Climbing Parnassus, a popular case for classical education in America. In the essays, Simmons shows how each speech fits into the broad mosaic of the American story. Commerce with these words offers us one path back to citizenship, decency, and good sense.

Finding Our Words is for individuals and for use in education at all levels, exclusively or in conjunction with other works, for the study of language arts, U.S. history, civics, statesmanship, and elocution.

Learn more.