From The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Funding for non-defense appropriated programs has fallen in recent years, with 2025 funding at its lowest inflation-adjusted level since 2017. Nonetheless, President Trump’s 2026 budget proposes extremely deep cuts to non-defense funding relative to 2025 levels. ”
“Medical research. The President’s 2026 budget cuts the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by 41 percent, to $27.7 billion.[19] The Senate Appropriations Committee Labor-HHS-Education bill provides a 0.9 percent increase over the 2025 level, while the House Appropriations subcommittee bill makes a cut of 0.9 percent for NIH. Predictable funding for medical research is essential to long-term advances in health care; even a short delay in funding can set research back years. Yet for 2025 the Administration has attempted to freeze billions of dollars for life-saving NIH research; significantly delayed the awarding of funds for Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cancer, and other important medical research; and illegally terminated hundreds of NIH grants.
K-12 education. The President’s budget cuts the Department of Education by 15 percent relative to 2025, as does the House bill. The Senate bill, in contrast, mostly holds education funding steady. For example, in K-12 education the President’s budget consolidates 18 education grant programs, including for after-school and summer programs, English language learning support, teacher professional development, and tutoring programs, into one block grant and cuts funding by more than two-thirds, from $6.5 billion to $2 billion. The House takes a different approach to K-12 funding, cutting Title I, funds that support schools serving families with low incomes, by almost $5 billion or 25 percent. The Senate bill holds funding for most K-12 programs at their 2025 levels.
Home energy assistance for low-income households. The President’s budget eliminates in 2026 the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which provides heating and cooling assistance to 6 million low-income households to help prevent utility shutoffs. The President also attempted to zero out LIHEAP in his first term. In addition, in April the Administration made clear its intention to do away with LIHEAP by firing the entire staff.[23] The Senate bill provides $4.0 billion for LIHEAP, a 0.5 percent increase above the 2025 level. The House bill provides a smaller increase of 0.25 percent above the 2025 level. (Due to limited funding, LIHEAP currently aids only one-sixth of eligible households.)
Nutrition assistance for new and expecting parents and young children. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides a science-based food benefit that helps ensure that low-income families with young children can afford the foods they need for a healthy diet. The WIC funding levels in the House 2026 Agriculture Appropriations bill and the President’s budget would break Congress’s nearly 30-year commitment to provide enough funding to serve all eligible families who seek support from WIC and to provide full benefits. The House bill also starts the process laid out in the President’s budget to slash WIC’s science-based fruit and vegetable benefit for more than 5 million participants.
Rental assistance. Federal rental assistance helps roughly 10 million people — struggling seniors, people with disabilities, veterans, and working families — keep a roof over their heads, often by helping them afford rental units they find in the private market. The House Transportation and Housing Appropriations bill would result in about 411,000 fewer people receiving Housing Choice Vouchers. It also cuts funding for public housing by nearly $1.5 billion (about 17 percent), reducing the maintenance and repairs needed to protect residents’ health and safety. The Senate bill’s funding levels are higher but would still cut public housing by $410 million (about 5 percent) and result in about 243,000 fewer people receiving vouchers. Housing Choice Vouchers are tied to rental costs so require additional funding each year to continue assisting the same number of people; only about a quarter of those who are eligible receive vouchers due to limited funding…
Congress can act to curb the Administration’s illegal actions and prohibit partisan deal-breaking to restore the ability of lawmakers to reach a true bipartisan agreement. It could take steps to speed up the distribution of funding and take away executive branch discretion that has been repeatedly abused by the Administration to slow spending.
It could strengthen the penalties when the Administration engages in illegal impoundments. It could prohibit partisan rescissions in funding provided through bipartisan funding legislation. And it could limit the Administration’s politicization of the grantmaking process and improve transparency to aid in oversight and public pushback. Enacting these changes will require bipartisan support. Without them, it is hard to see how Congress can reach a bipartisan budget agreement and avert a damaging government shutdown.”
You can read the entire article here: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/2026-appropriations-must-protect-against-further-partisan-cuts-and-illegal
So far the Trump administration has tried almost every conceivable to upset the balance of power between the three branches of the government. Their repeated attempts to wrest control of the national budget from Congress have been blatant and have already created chaos for many.
The Trump Administration has just stopped measuring Food Insecurity, there’s no problem if no one’s checking, which is another indicator of the administration’s desire to paint a rosy picture by painting over or cutting out anything that might stray from their desired narrative.
The blatant disregard for the poor, the disabled, veterans and children is to great to miss.
Congress CAN act but will they? So far loyalty to Trump outweighs every other consideration, like understanding that Congresspersons’ job is to work for the benefit of the people who voted them into office. Until Congress feels the pressure, enough to affect their perceived job security, no change will come.
What do you think?
Does any of these funding issues affect your household or any other family/friends?
Let your representative know what you think: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials
Leave a Reply