CNN
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The White House unveiled a budget blueprint Friday that would pump more money into defense and homeland security, while taking an ax to programs the Trump administration has already targeted, including education, foreign aid, environment, health and public assistance programs.
The proposal outlines President Donald Trump’s vision and provides recommendations to Congress for fiscal year 2026 spending, but lawmakers are not required to follow it. The blueprint released Friday is an outline, otherwise known as a “skinny budget,” with a more comprehensive plan expected to be released in coming weeks.
The proposal follows Trump’s priorities of beefing up the nation’s defense and immigration enforcement capabilities. It would increase defense spending by 13% to $1 trillion. It would also provide a “historic” $175 billion investment to “fully secure the border,” according to an Office of Management and Budget letter sent to Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, which was obtained by CNN.
The administration is pushing to have these increases included in the budget reconciliation bill Congress is currently assembling, which would allow it to be approved without Democratic votes in the Senate. Democrats have typically objected to raising defense funding without corresponding increases to certain non-defense spending.
The blueprint also calls for sweeping cuts to a multitude of discretionary programs that the Trump administration has been dismantling since it took office in January. It would slash $163 billion from non-defense, discretionary spending, a nearly 23% reduction, bringing it down to roughly $557 billion.
The administration “protected” Transportation, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and “numerous other priorities,” a senior administration official told reporters on Friday. The proposal also preserves funding for Title 1 funding for schools with many low-income students, special education funding, as well as Pell Grants.
But that means that other agencies and programs will bear the brunt of the cuts.
“This is a pretty historic effort to deal with the bureaucracy … that we believe has grown up over many years to be entrenched against the interests of the American people,” the official said, noting that the administration worked closely with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to prepare the outline. “We feel this is a joint project.”
The proposal calls for eliminating multiple diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, environmental justice efforts and other “woke” programs, according to the OMB letter.
Among the agencies and programs recommended for cuts are the National Park Service, climate science research, foreign economic and disaster assistance, UN peacekeepers, certain education funding to schools, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and rental assistance.
Overall, the discretionary budget would be $1.7 trillion, a 7.6% cut from the current fiscal year. The proposal does not make recommendations for so-called mandatory spending programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps.
CNN’s Gabe Cohen contributed to this report.
