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What Happened?
A recently-leaked internal memo from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealed the Trump administration’s intentions to cut over $40 billion from the agency’s 2026 budget.
Why It’s Important?
This is the most detailed plan to date of the Trump regime’s plans to damage the agency. The proposal would slash nearly one-third of HHS’ current budget through wide-ranging reductions in capacity including:
- A 44% reduction in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) budget, resulting in the elimination of chronic disease programs, including those targeting heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and smoking cessation.
- A 40% cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget by consolidating its 27 institutes and centers into just eight, and discontinuing research on topics such as vaccine hesitancy and transgender health.
- The elimination of the Head Start program, which provides early childhood education and care to low-income families.
- The elimination of the LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services within the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
- The closure of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which supports community health centers and rural healthcare programs.
Who Benefits?
In the long run, it’s hard to argue that anyone benefits from such drastic attacks on health infrastructure. But the ongoing fallout of layoffs within HHS offers a glimpse of who stands to gain from further budget cuts:
- Big Tobacco: With the FDA’s Center For Tobacco nearly dismantled and the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health completely eliminated, efforts to regulate and reduce the production/consumption of tobacco products have essentially stalled. Such program closures are the latest example of the tobacco industry cashing in on its support for Trump’s campaign.
- Wellness Industry: Raw pet food companies whose products have contributed to the spread of H5N1 face even less oversight because the Office of Veterinary Medicine has been gutted by staff firings.
The devastating consequences of this proposal, if it is implemented, are already apparent. In the last month alone we’ve seen measles clinics and hepatitis labs close amid ongoing outbreaks; delays to vaccine approval; and growing brain drain of research talent.
Political accountability is only as good as the information available to, and circulating within, the polity. Now more than ever, it is critical that organizations not only monitor what the Trump regime is and isn’t doing, but also catalogue material harms in a manner understandable to activists and their networks.
That’s what we’re doing with our DOGEWATCH. From disease outbreaks to DOGE personnel profiles, RDP has multiple resources to keep track of the Trump administration.
Want more? Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week:
Corruption Calendar Week 13: No Need To Rely On Luck When Cash Dictates Outcomes In MAGA World
Polling Tracker: Americans’ Opinions of Oligarchy and Corruption
Billionaires and the Trump Admin: Stephen Schwarzman
Billionaires and the Trump Admin: Harold Hamm