President Trump on Friday proposed slashing $163 billion in federal spending for the next fiscal year, a dramatic reconfiguration of the government’s role and reach that would eliminate a vast array of climate, education, health and housing programs, including some that primarily benefit the poor.
Mr. Trump’s discretionary $1.7 trillion blueprint illustrates his conservative vision for Washington and formalizes the disruptive reorganization that he commenced upon returning to office, a campaign that has already shuttered entire agencies and dismissed federal workers without the explicit approval of Congress.
The 2026 budget proposal recommends stunning cuts across nearly every major agency that would reduce overall domestic spending to the lowest level of the modern era. House Speaker Mike Johnson swiftly endorsed it. “Our country cannot continue to bear the hard consequences of years of runaway spending under Democratic leadership,” he said, “and this budget makes clear that fiscal discipline is nonnegotiable.”
Here’s what else to know:
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Major health cutbacks: The budget proposes massive cuts for the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but it includes $500 million for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s signature initiative: Make America Healthy Again. The C.D.C.’s budget would be cut by more than half, to $4 billion from roughly $9 billion, and its chronic disease center would be eliminated.
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Slashing education and the arts: Spending for education would fall by $12 billion under Mr. Trump’s 2026 blueprint, with the most significant cut coming from a plan to “streamline” Title I money for high-poverty schools and other K-12 programs. The plan also would eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Climate change: The proposal would dismantle many government programs to study and mitigate global warming. It would cut funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the world’s premier centers for climate science, by roughly a quarter, and would slash $4.7 billion from the Department of Energy, aiming at programs related to renewable energy and climate change. The proposal also aims to cancel roughly $15 billion in clean-energy funding from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill.
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A boost in defense: The 2026 budget plan would increase military spending for 2026 by 13 percent, to $1.01 trillion, almost entirely through allocations in a congressional budget reconciliation plan under consideration. Pentagon officials say Elon Musk’s SpaceX is considered likely to be the top recipient of this burst of new spending.
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Major changes to the F.B.I.: The Trump budget proposes cutting more than $500 million from the F.B.I., declaring that the administration “is committed to undoing the weaponization” of the agency that it said occurred under the Biden administration.
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Safety net cuts: The 2026 plan would slash federal safety net programs, confirming early budget documents reviewed last week by The New York Times. The cuts including doing away with more than $26 billion in federal rental assistance.
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Less for the I.R.S.: The budget outline calls for a roughly 20 percent cut in the I.R.S.’s spending next year, a change that could force the agency to lay off even more people and struggle further to collect roughly $5 trillion in taxes every year.
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Immigration: The budget plan calls for a $43.8 billion increase for the Department of Homeland Security, to be used to crack down on illegal immigration, including deporting migrants, finishing construction of a wall at the southern border and investing in technology to police that border. At the same time, the plan would slash $650 million earmarked for the Department of Homeland Security Shelter and Services Program, which the Biden administration used to help cities, migrant advocacy groups and churches provide temporary housing to migrants.
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What survived: Head Start was preserved, even though the Trump administration was considering eliminating the $12.2 billion program, which provides early education and child care for some of the nation’s poorest children. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, initiated in 2022 under the Biden administration, also survived. It gives grants to scientists pursuing high-risk, high-reward medical research, like studying ways to get cartilage to grow back when people develop osteoarthritis.
