Trump's "skinny" budget proposal.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 12 minutes.

Reviewing Trump’s first 100 days.

On Thursday and Friday, we published a two-part review of the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency. In Part 1, we reviewed Trump’s promises against how he was fulfilling them. In Part 2, we covered some of the stories we missed in Part 1, shared arguments from the right and left about the administration’s start, and then our Executive Editor Isaac Saul shared his take. You can read those editions here and here.

Quick hits.

1. The Israeli security cabinet unanimously approved a new war plan to expand military operations in the Gaza Strip, including occupying the territory. The Israeli military also announced it will be calling up tens of thousands of reservists to bolster its operations in Gaza. (The plan and call-ups) Separately, Yemen’s Houthi rebels injured eight in a missile attack that struck near Israel's main airport. (The attack)
2. President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies to end federal funding for NPR and PBS. (The order) Separately, the Justice Department sued Hawaii, Michigan, Vermont, and New York over climate actions they say conflict with federal authority. (The lawsuits)
3. A federal judge permanently blocked the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to expedite Venezuelan deportations from the Southern District of Texas. (The ruling) Separately, a federal judge invalidated President Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie, finding that the order violated free speech and due-process protections. (The ruling) 
4. President Trump said he would only accept “total dismantlement” of Iran’s nuclear program as a condition of a nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran. (The comments)
5. Seasonally adjusted nonfarm payrolls increased by 177,000 in April, exceeding economists’ expectations. Additionally, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.2%. (The numbers)

Today's topic.

President Trump’s budget. On Friday, the Trump administration released its budget proposal for fiscal year 2026. The White House recommends budgeting $557 billion in nondefense discretionary spending, $163 billion (22.6%) below current levels, with significant cuts to foreign aid, scientific research, and environmental programs. It also proposes $1.01 trillion for defense spending, a 13% increase. 

Back up: The proposal is a “skinny budget,” an aspirational document that outlines a president’s spending priorities for the following fiscal year. While rarely enacted in full, skinny budgets are a starting point for budget negotiations in Congress. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought said the recommendations in Trump’s budget proposal precede a forthcoming, comprehensive fiscal plan. Any appropriations bill requires 60 votes to advance through the Senate, and the stopgap spending deal the Trump administration approved in March expires on September 30. 

We covered President Joe Biden’s FY 2025 budget proposal here.

In a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) introducing the proposal, Vought said OMB arrived at the budget recommendation through a “rigorous, line-by-line review of FY 2025 spending, which was found to be laden with spending contrary to the needs of ordinary working Americans and tilted toward funding niche non-governmental organizations and institutions of higher education committed to radical gender and climate ideologies antithetical to the American way of life.” 

Outside of defense spending, these were the top cuts and increases the Trump administration recommended:

• A $49.1 billion cut to state and international programs
• A $33.6 billion cut to the Department of Housing and Urban Development
• A $33.3 billion cut to the Department of Health and Human Services
• A $42.3 billion increase to the Department of Homeland Security
• A $5.4 billion increase to the Department of Veterans Affairs
• A $1.5 billion increase to the Department of Transportation

Members of the House Freedom Caucus, which previously clashed with Republican leadership over spending priorities, praised the proposal, calling it a “paradigm shift.” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said the 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.”

However, some Republican members of Congress criticized the proposal for not actually increasing defense spending. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) argued that since the administration counted a defense increase in a separate reconciliation bill, defense spending in the appropriations bill (which is roughly the same as the FY 2025 allocation) would effectively decrease due to inflation. 

Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats criticized the budget’s cuts to federal programs. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said, “This budget proposal would set our country back decades by decimating investments to help families afford the basics, to keep communities safe and to ensure America remains the world leader in innovation and lifesaving research.”

Today, we’ll share arguments from the right and left on President Trump’s budget proposal, followed by my take.

What the right is saying.

• The right supports the budget outline, suggesting it follows through on Trump’s campaign promises. 
• Some call on Congress to embrace the bulk of the spending cuts.
• Others say the proposal targets some bloat but question some of its increases.

The New York Post editorial board wrote “Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ budget plan delivers for America.”

The plan “[slashes] billions from corrupt Biden-era ‘climate’ outlays, reining in federal subsidies for campus bureaucracies pushing woke ideologies and ending foreign aid that doesn’t address real US security needs,” the board said. “Contrary to braying by congressional Democrats, Trump’s spending reductions do not touch Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, though some program reforms can slow the growth of Medicaid and bring savings by reducing fraud. Among the desperately needed investments in national defense: development of ‘Golden Dome’ next-gen missile defense system, ramped up funding for naval shipyards, the sixth-generation F-47 Next Generation combat aircraft, plus modernization of the US military’s nuclear deterrence. It’s sending a message of peace through strength.”

“Trump’s bold plan pushes the federal government in the direction Republicans have wanted for decades now, but lacked the resolve to pursue. It aims to cut off special interests and insiders who’ve fed too long from the public purse, get the government off the back of the productive private sector and reverse the long decline of the nation’s defenses. Now it’s up to the House and Senate to follow through.”

In Cato, Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett argued “Congress should embrace the cuts in Trump’s skinny budget.”

“In many respects, the budget enshrines the priorities of the Department of Government Efficiency, such as agency consolidation, workforce reductions, and federal divestment from state and local functions. Congress should embrace the spending reductions in the budget and act on them,” Boccia and Lett wrote. “Note that this is a partial ‘skinny’ budget, so it makes no real attempt to restrain the primary drivers of the deficit—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Without changes to these old-age retirement and health care programs, the US will remain hurtling towards a fiscal crisis.”

“In addition to acting on the president’s spending cut proposals, Congress should adopt binding 10-year discretionary spending caps with a 2 percent annual spending growth limit. Imposing transparent resource constraints should motivate legislators to prioritize core government functions and more carefully examine the trade-offs inherent in all spending decisions. Likewise, Congress should also implement offsets for any new emergency designations, deterring phony and wasteful emergency spending.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board said the budget offers “useful reform.”

“The press is portraying the Administration’s budget as a starvation diet. But non-defense discretionary spending has increased by 45% over the last six years—nearly twice as much as inflation. The budget’s proposed cuts would hold spending flat,” the board wrote. “The much-needed reforms include turning housing rental assistance programs into state block grants with two-year eligibility caps for able-bodied adults to ensure most of the money goes to the elderly and disabled. The budget also proposes consolidating sundry worker-training programs and eliminating the Job Corps, which has lousy outcomes.”

“Another useful budget reform is eliminating ‘harm reduction’ substance abuse programs that provide ‘safe smoking kits and supplies’ and ‘syringes’ for drug users. The Administration plans to cut $18 billion from the National Institutes of Health, which could hurt innovation, though the agency currently spends too much on overhead and social-science research,” the board said. “A disappointment is the defense proposal, which could be something of a bait and switch. It advertises a $119.3 billion increase, but that includes the $150 billion one-time increase in Congress’s reconciliation bill that we touted earlier this week.”

What the left is saying.

• The left criticizes the proposed cuts to federal agencies, arguing they would harm millions of Americans. 
• Some say the budget would undermine critical programs like cancer research.
• Others worry Trump is teeing up a broader-spending clash with Congress.

For The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Sharon Parrott wrote “Trump’s budget plan continues [his] agenda of hurting those he pledged to help.”

“During the campaign, President Trump said, ‘As soon as I get to office, we will make housing much more affordable.’ But his budget proposes a devastating cut to rental assistance — which makes rent affordable for 10 million people — reducing funding by $27 billion below the amount provided in 2025 across five programs. This would cause millions of people to lose assistance they need to pay the rent each month, placing them at risk of eviction and homelessness,” Parrott said. “These cuts would likely grow even deeper over time, since the budget would also consolidate multiple rental assistance programs into a block grant that would be more vulnerable to cuts in the future.”

“In addition, the budget proposes severe cuts to other housing programs, such as sharply reducing funding for housing and other services for people experiencing homelessness, cutting housing resources for Indigenous people, and eliminating funding for local agencies protecting people from housing discrimination and other fair housing violations, and block grants that fund affordable housing and community development at the local level,” Parrott wrote. “Most fundamentally, the budget fails to propose a serious agenda for the U.S. economy or for people who haven’t been included enough in the country’s overall prosperity.”

In MSNBC, Jalal Baig said “Trump’s cuts will devastate cancer research.”

“The administration’s assault on cancer research is part of a larger effort by the Department of Government Efficiency to trim the fat on federal programs,” Baig wrote. “Instead, the Trump administration proposed cutting and capping NIH’s payments for ‘indirect’ costs (rent, electricity, specialized lab equipment, support personnel, etc.) at 15%. These facility and administrative fees associated with research can range from anywhere between 10% to 80% of a grant and are negotiated between the NIH and individual institutions.”

“Countless Americans depend on the continued progress of cancer research to save lives and improve cancer care. And without it, many potential insights and treatments needed to propel oncology forward will never be realized,” Baig said. “The progress of cancer research is rarely linear. While most ideas fail, some will lead to seismic breakthroughs. Adding widespread budget cuts to this already difficult scientific process will not only dissuade future scientists from entering the country’s labs, but will also unconscionably swing the pendulum from life to death for many hopeful patients.”

In The New Republic, Hafiz Rashid suggested Trump’s proposal “threatens to take over Congress’s powers.”

The proposal “would slash nearly every federal program by $163 billion, except for defense spending, which would remain flat. Many Republicans are already unhappy with it, but the White House may not heed their concerns. One official in the Office of Management and Budget told Politico that the administration wouldn’t rule out impoundment, or overriding Congress’s decision by withholding funding it has already approved,” Rashid wrote. “Such a move would violate the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which Trump and his allies have called unconstitutional.”

“Trump hinted at bringing back ‘presidential impoundment authority’ while campaigning for president, making his attempt to seize appropriated funds a real possibility, despite the Constitution clearly stating that the authority over government spending lies with Congress,” Rashid said. “So, will the president try to impound funds, and will Republicans stand up for their own constitutional authority if he does? The GOP has not shown much, if any resolve, in standing up to Trump, and Democrats have little they can do as the minority in the House and Senate. It seems that if Trump tries to seize funds, the courts may be the only check on his power.”

My take.

Reminder: "My take" is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• Like Biden’s 2025 budget proposal, Trump’s skinny budget doesn’t meaningfully address our worst fiscal problems.
• There’s a lot of good, a lot of bad, and a lot of standard Republican fare.
• Actually addressing spending requires cuts to reform defense, healthcare, and Social Security — but no president wants to do that.

First, I’m not surprised by anything in this proposal. In a term that has already been marred by a shattering of norms and abuse of executive power, President Trump is proposing a budget of pretty standard Republican fare. Military spending up, social services cut — no plan to meaningfully address our annual deficit. Raise your hand if you’ve seen this before (everyone’s hands should be going up).

Which is why I’ll repeat the same thing — verbatim — I said about Biden’s skinny budget: “I genuinely believe we are in a perilous moment with our debt and deficit, and I don't see anything in this budget that is new, innovative, or helpful in the way we'll need to escape said peril. 

In fact, I think the debt and deficit situation is worse now than it was under Biden. That isn’t exclusively Trump’s fault; it is the straightforward product of successive administrations increasing the federal budget and not collecting enough tax revenue to pay for it. Trump is like every other 21st-century president who has continued (and worsened) at least one element of that one-two combo (though, it should be said, he might be the only one who has both massively increased our spending and passed tax cuts).

Every president faces a dual challenge in trying to control our fiscal situation. First, voters hate tax increases, so raising new revenues is incredibly hard. Second, they face a media that, as The Wall Street Journal editorial board put it, portrays every spending cut as a “starvation diet.” The Journal’s editorial board is right to point out that our nondefense discretionary spending (that is, the spending Congress approves annually that is not mandated by law) has increased 45% in six years — twice as much as inflation. 

Trump’s proposed budget holds that spending flat, which in this political climate is about the best you can expect. To get there, Trump followed the modern Republican playbook of scorched-earth cuts paired with increases for defense and homeland security. I’ll lay out my reactions to these individual proposals, starting with the small stuff and working up to the big stuff.

I support a lot of the smaller individual cuts and increases. For instance, moving housing and rental-assistance programs into state block grants (and capping them for able-bodied adults so the money primarily goes to the elderly and disabled) is a good example of more efficient governing, not heartless rug-pulling of social services. While I don’t support Trump targeting specific news organizations with executive orders, I’m also totally fine with cutting federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, given that government money is often a fraction of public media organizations’ budgets and I fundamentally oppose the government funding the press in principle. 

On the flip side, I’m glad to see suggestions for increases in air traffic controllers and updated systems at the Federal Aviation Administration (a nice change of pace from the absurd slash and burn policies of DOGE). I also conditionally support more money to fund Homeland Security, provided it means more funding for immigration judges and asylum officers at the border — a proposal I have been screaming into the void for many years now. 

And, naturally, I positively hate some of Trump’s recommendations. For instance, the skinny budget proposes devastating cuts to an already struggling National Parks Service (NPS), which makes no sense to me. The NPS is a great example of a federal program doing a lot with a little, and the system has already been upended by the erratic and disorganized DOGE cuts, which cost it some 2,500 employees. I know a lot of NPS workers and have been to many of our parks, quintessential American treasures, and I strongly believe they are underfunded, not overfunded. Yet the Trump administration is now forcing many parks to suspend tours, cut hours, and limit camping reservations.

The park system, actually, is almost the complete opposite of the Pentagon — which brings me to the big stuff. The Department of Defense is a massive, ever-expanding repository of waste that consistently fails audits and regularly evades oversight. So, naturally, Trump is putting forward the first-ever trillion-dollar military budget (in real dollars — Obama’s 2011 defense budget exceeded $1 trillion when adjusted for inflation), and bragging about increasing military spending.

Interestingly, and as several of the writers we quoted above mentioned, Trump’s proposal would not actually do that. The short story is basically that Trump recommends keeping military funding flat in the appropriations bill while promising to boost spending in his massive reconciliation bill which is supposed to come later — something key Republicans are already expressing displeasure about. And they’re right to: It’s a budgetary gimmick to pretend this proposal boosts military spending. But I’m glad it doesn’t. In this era of runaway federal deficits, we shouldn’t be boosting spending on an already bloated military when we know it isn’t using all those billions of dollars efficiently. 

All of this brings me to my final point: Politicians talk a lot, often telling specific audiences what they want to hear. But when push comes to shove, a budget proposal like this is the best way to understand a president’s priorities. In Trump’s case, it looks like his aim is to slash funding for foreign aid, climate initiatives, scientific research and housing programs, while boosting cash for the border, veterans, air safety, charter schools, and Mars exploration. 

And yet, I still feel like this is all just noise. 

In his final term, Trump has a golden opportunity to do the truly courageous thing — which would be to grab the political third rail of addressing Social Security, Medicare, and defense spending — but this administration, like all those before it, appears keen to look the other way. Rather than taking any of the many great options to reform these programs, Trump appears to want to take credit for reining in spending while forcing our attention elsewhere: a debate about the ethics of slashing biomedical research or education programs for Americans living in poverty. Just like Biden and Democrats, Trump is absolutely petrified to touch the things that would have the biggest impact on our fiscal crisis.

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Your questions, answered.

Q: Why hasn't Trump gotten rid of the penny? He suggested it and I would bet that it is a non-partisan issue; Canada did it years ago. Seems like a no-brainer. Is eliminating the penny too easy and too non-controversial for Trump's palate?

— Christina from Purdy, WA

Tangle: He has gotten rid of the penny! Kind of. Well, it’s complicated.

First, the reason to remove it: Making each one-cent coin costs the U.S. Treasury 3.69 cents, and the government loses nearly $10 million a month producing them. A penny has cost more to make than it’s worth for a long time, and opposition to minting the coin goes back to the 1980s. Also, the Treasury Department has discontinued coins in the past, like the half-cent, two-cent coin, and the “trime” (three-cent coin). It makes sense to not make these cents. 

And in February, Trump ordered Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to halt production on new pennies. Legally, whether the president can do that is a little unclear. Bessent has the authority to print the coins he “decides are necessary,” according to the U.S. code, so he seems to have the power to just set that number to zero. That would mean a couple things: Existing pennies are still recognized as legal tender, and another president or Treasury secretary could decide differently and mint new ones again. Permanently banning the penny from new minting or circulation would require an act of Congress.

So, eliminating the penny isn’t actually “too easy” to do permanently. It also isn’t too non-controversial. Some critics believe that eliminating the penny would have costly knock-on effects (potentially introducing more price increases), annoy consumers by forcing rounded transactions, and actually be unpopular to a majority. And, as every article we quoted gets into, others say Trump isn’t going far enough with the penny — a nickel costs 14 cents to mint, so why not get rid of both?

Ultimately, it looks likely that you won’t see any new pennies during Trump’s administration, but you can still spend the ones you have — though both those statements are subject to change.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has spearheaded significant headcount reductions and spending cuts at various federal agencies, but many of those actions could prove temporary once Musk steps back from his role. Several Republican lawmakers have signaled that their colleagues may balk at codifying cuts to foreign aid and other programs as the party prepares its forthcoming budget-reconciliation bill. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) said DOGE’s attempts to eliminate foreign aid programs will be an “interesting debate” in Congress, adding “if we get off the field completely and there’s a void, then our adversaries will fill it.” Separately, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) suggested that much of the spending will be reinstated. “We write strongly worded letters. We express righteous indignation at hearings, and then we just rubber stamp everything we did last year,” he said. NOTUS has the story.

Numbers.

• 148. The number of days until September 30, when the current deal funding the government expires. 
• –83.7%. The percent change in funding for state and other international programs in President Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, the largest percent change for any program or agency.
• 20% and 49%. The percentage of Americans who think that federal government spending on foreign aid should increase and decrease, respectively, according to a February 2025 YouGov poll.
• +64.9%. The percent change in funding for the Department of Homeland Security in President Trump’s budget proposal, the second-largest percent change for any program or agency.
• 60% and 11%. The percentage of Americans who think that federal government spending on border security should increase and decrease, respectively, according to a February 2025 YouGov poll.
• 35%. The average reduction in funding for federal agencies — among those targeted for cuts — in Trump’s proposed budget. 
• 23. The number of independent agencies whose funding would be eliminated in Trump’s budget proposal. 
• 14. Of those 23, the number of agencies that Trump sought to eliminate in his 2018 budget during his first term.

The extras.

• One year ago today we had just written a Friday edition saying that protestors aren’t always right.
• The most clicked link in Wednesday’s newsletter was the dog that rescued a missing two-year-old.
• Nothing to do with politics: The economics of rotisserie chickens. 
• Wednesday’s survey: 2,438 readers answered our survey on Trump’s influence on the Canadian election with 61% saying the U.S. president was a significant factor. “Polling indicates it was voters 60 years and older for which Trump was a major factor,” one respondent said. 

Have a nice day.

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