On Friday, President Donald Trump released his skinny budget plan for fiscal year 2026, outlining his administration’s plan to reduce the federal government’s overall spending while increasing funding for border security and the military. If enacted, the budget would amount to the lowest non-defense spending since 2017 while codifying in law some of Trump’s most critical early executive orders.
A president’s “skinny” budget is a brief, initial version of the federal budget proposal that details top priorities and proposed spending levels, usually submitted early in the budget process. While lacking the detailed line-item breakdowns found in the full budget, it serves as an important policy statement that helps drive final negotiations.
“Over the last four years, government spending aggressively turned against the American people and trillions of our dollars were used to fund cultural Marxism, radical Green New Scams, and even our own invasion,” said Russ Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, when explaining the importance of Trump’s skinny budget. “No agency was spared in the Left’s taxpayer-funded cultural revolution.”
In total, Trump’s plan would cut non-defense spending by $163 billion, or 23 percent, compared to fiscal year 2025. Defense spending would see an increase of 13 percent, with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees border security, receiving a $43.8 billion funding increase.
The breakdown in border security funding includes “$500 million for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to expedite the removal of illegal aliens through the support of 50,000 detention beds, $766 million to procure cutting-edge border security technology funding, and funding to maintain 22,000 Border Patrol Agents and hire additional Customs and Border Protection officers for a total of 26,383 officers.”
The plan additionally eliminates funding from programs and initiatives that abetted illegal immigration. These cuts include $890 million from the “English Language Acquisition” program that de-emphasized English as a primary language, $729 million from the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act grant program that provided free education and job training to illegal aliens, $650 million from the Shelter and Services Program that provided hotels to illegal aliens, and $3.5 billion from programs that facilitated migration to the United States and instructed new arrivals on how to game the asylum system.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem further praised the president’s plan for cutting funding for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have facilitated illegal immigration.
“These NGOs spent hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars trafficking illegal aliens across the United States, including paying for cell phones, hotels, and flights. All while coaching illegal aliens on how to manipulate U.S. immigration regulations to remain in the U.S. and escape deportation,” Noem wrote on X. “Their Biden-funded campaign to destroy our country ends today.”
Along with increasing funding for DHS, Trump’s budget also calls for a spending increase of $113 billion at the Department of Defense. This spending includes a “Golden Dome for America” missile defense system, supporting “U.S. space dominance,” funding improved aircraft, protecting the border, and providing service members with a 3.8 percent pay raise.
The administration also says that its plan will end “wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars on woke climate and DEI programs and redirects resources to support the warfighter.”
Beyond changing funding levels, the budget process is also a crucial opportunity for congressional Republicans to enshrine Trump’s sweeping changes to the federal bureaucracy into law. This includes Trump’s efforts to eliminate far-left ideologies like Critical Race Theory and radical gender theory, as well as so-called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) from federal spending.
Some examples of DEI spending items Trump’s budget would eliminate include $315 million for preschool development programs that promoted “racial equity” and “LGBTQIA+” lessons to toddlers, $77 million from programs that trained teachers in critical race theory, DEI, social justice, and white privilege, and $600 million from the Environmental Protection Agency’s “environmental justice” program.
The budget would also officially cut funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for projects such as “‘Net Zero Cities’ in Mexico, promoting political participation in LGBTQI+ communities around the world, and ‘family planning’ abortion services in places such as Afghanistan, Syria, and Africa.”
A major component of the budget plan is the elimination of all initiatives that promoted the “Green New Deal,” which the budget labels as the “Green New Scam.” These cuts include $15 billion “purposed for unreliable renewable energy, removing carbon dioxide from the air, and other costly technologies that burden ratepayers and consumers” and $6 billion “for wasteful and ineffective EV charger programs.” Additional cuts target research grants for left-wing climate goals.
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas praised the president’s budget plan on X. He has had a contentious relationship with Trump in the past, but his vote will be instrumental with the GOP’s slim majority in the House.
“I strongly commend President Trump, OMB Director Russ Vought, and the entire White House team for releasing a truly transformational budget that maintains strong funding for our national defense while reducing the weaponized and wasteful bureaucracy by 20 percent to better than pre-COVID levels,” Roy said. “This budget re-aligns federal spending to the priorities of the people: a secure nation, making America healthy again, a Justice Department combatting crime and not weaponized against the people, and common sense.”
Despite the magnitude of what Trump and congressional Republicans hope to accomplish through this one budget bill, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he hopes to finalize and pass the entire package over just the next three weeks.
With the 2026 midterm elections now clearly on the horizon, Republicans have no time to waste. The budget reconciliation process will likely be the GOP’s final opportunity to pass major legislation without having to overcome the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
The success or failure of Trump’s second-term agenda could well hang in the balance.
Alan Jamison is the pen name of a political writer with extensive experience writing for several notable politicians and news outlets.
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