Trump’s proposed budget cuts put numbers on the corrupt, cruel priorities he’s revealed from Day 1
Last week, the Trump administration revealed its initial 2026 budget proposal—a plan that reflects Trump and his allies’ priorities and intentions, but is not binding in a budget process controlled by Congress.
Surprising no one, the plan reads as a nakedly self-interested list of Trump’s priorities. It attacks his favorite targets—DEI and climate programs, social services, and non-billionaires—while directing funds to his favorite pet projects: building the border wall, violent mass deportation efforts, privatizing healthcare, enriching defense contractors, and making more and more data available to be mined by tech companies (see the VA section below), including Trump’s allies in Silicon Valley.
The proposal would cut ~$160 billion from the federal budget, slashing programs at every major federal agency, while increasing Defense and Homeland Security spending. (The VA and Transportation Department also see slight overall increases in funding, due to targeted expenditures outpacing cuts to other programs within those departments).
Trump even uses the plan to play damage control for reputational disasters that have occurred in the first hundred(ish) days of his presidency—see: proposed increases in funding to the FAA amid an ongoing string of air traffic disasters, and walking back threats to cut funding for Head Start, after legal challenges and strong bipartisan opposition to the plan, while still cutting funding for other early education programs. The specific attention to areas where his administration has seen criticism and opposition is textbook Trump, with his ego-driven decision-making.
RDP Resources:
- Trump Corruption Calendar Weekly Newsletter, highlighting ways Trump and his allies are enriching themselves by stealing from the rest of us
Proposed Cuts and their Impacts
Most federal agencies would see drastic and harmful cuts under Trump’s proposal. But the proposed attacks on the EPA, HHS, and IRS are particularly illustrative of his intentions to bulldoze through legal challenges, consolidate power in the executive branch, and attack any efforts at challenging catastrophic climate change, racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, poverty, and other challenges impacting the majority of people in this country and on the planet.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Trump’s proposal targets the EPA more than almost any other agency, slashing its budget by almost 55%. Cuts would include funding to clean up Superfund toxic waste sites, and funds for environmental justice programs. What are environmental justice programs? Despite the right wing mockery theyve received, these programs are the opposite of frivolous. They take steps to address the impact of hundreds of years of racist policymaking that exposes Black and brown communities to disproportionate levels of pollution and the associated health harms.
RDP Resources:
- Trump Environment Tracker: monitoring tangible increases in pollution and environmental and health harms caused by the Trump administration’s actions.
HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
Trump’s HHS budget proposal includes no mention of threatened cuts to Head Start that drew widespread opposition and legal challenges, but would slash the agency’s funding by approximately 26%. This includes cuts to the CDC and NIH, which would severely undercut the government’s ability to predict and respond to disease outbreaks.
RDP Resources:
- Measles outbreak and impact tracker
- Bird flu tracker
INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE
The proposal would cut IRS funding by $2.5 billion, reducing the Treasury Department (which houses the IRS)’s budget by 19%. As I’ve described at length in previous installments of this newsletter, Trump has made obliterating the IRS’s ability to tax his billionaire friends his goal from the jump. This budget proposal reflects those intentions, doubling down on a hiring freeze and widespread layoffs that have already taken effect.
RDP Resources:
- Tax Day Newsletter – IRS cuts and projected impacts.
Departments with Nominal Budget Increases
HOMELAND SECURITY & DEFENSE
DHS and DOD would see increases of 65% and 13% respectively under Trump’s proposal. For both departments, these increases reflect the net impact of cuts to programs designed to mitigate damage (FEMA programs housed in DHS, “environmental, scientific and green energy spending” by DOD) while adding funding for some of Trump’s signature projects. These include over $40 billion to support Trump’s mass deportation efforts and border wall construction, alongside almost $1 billion in cut funding to FEMA.
TRANSPORTATION
The relatively small ~6% increase at DOT reflects a $1.2 billion increase for the FAA, after an ongoing string of air safety disasters has led to criticism of the administration.
RDP Resources
- Air Safety Tracker: Aviation Disasters And Trump Administration Attacks On Air Safety
VETERANS AFFAIRS
The proposed increase at the VA is presumably political as well, after the administration came under fire for proposed firings and funding cuts. While the proposal includes a net spending increase of 4.1%, it still includes cuts to the Department’s IT systems and DEI programs. At the same time, it proposes to funnel funds like intended to further privatize veterans’ healthcare (money for “veterans who seek private medical care outside the government-run system”). It also outlines $2.2 billion in spending to “upgrad[ing] electronic medical records”—a move potentially intended to allow tech companies to access and mine veterans’ data, judging by recent federal government collaborations with notorious defense contractor and surveillance company Palantir to access taxpayer data.
RDP Resources:
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Image credit: White House photo “P20250501DT-0600” is in the public domain.