Guided by blueprints written by conservative think tanks and supporters, President Trump set out to radically reduce the size and scope of the federal government in his first budget request last spring. But as Congress finally gets around to approving the spending bills for the 2026 fiscal year, many of the radical cuts Trump sought are being softened and, in some cases, completely ignored as lawmakers continue to fund programs ranging from the Voice of America to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
As The New York Times’s Catie Edmondson reported this week, the funding bills that lawmakers have been passing ahead of a January 30 deadline look a lot different than what Trump requested in his budget, even though Republicans control both houses of Congress. For example, the House passed a spending package for the State Department that would provide $19 billion more for foreign aid programs than Trump requested, though at the same time the bills reduce spending by $9 billion compared to last year.
Trump sought to eviscerate the Voice of America, but Congress is providing $653 million for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which operates the international broadcaster. That’s roughly $500 million more than Trump requested.
The White House also took aim at federally funded scientific research in its budget, slashing the allocation for the National Science Foundation by 57%, but Congress is keeping its funding roughly steady at $8.75 billion, according to Sen. Patty Murray, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. Inside the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research was slated for elimination in the Trump budget, but lawmakers are providing $634 million to continue its work.
“These are bills that reject the devastating cuts Trump demanded in his deeply unserious budget he sent to Congress about a year ago,” Murray told the Times. “When just about every secretary came before our Appropriations Committee to advocate for those Trump funding cuts, I made clear to them I planned to rip up his budget and write a new one — and that is exactly what we are doing.”
Conservative concern: Some Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns about the funding bills, seeing them as proof that spending just cannot be cut significantly, even with near-complete GOP control in Washington.
Republican Rep. Eric Burlison cited an example: the National Endowment for Democracy. That’s “a program that Elon Musk, while leading DOGE, said publicly was a scam; that it was rife with corruption and an evil organization that should be dissolved,” Burlison told the Times, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump administration’s effort to unilaterally shrink government agencies and spending. “President Trump and his administration attempted to do that, and yet here we are trying to fund it.”
Still, higher-than-requested funding is not expected to derail the spending packages. “If this bill were presented to the President in its current form, his senior advisors would recommend that he sign it into law,” the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement last week in support of a package providing appropriations for Commerce, Justice, and Science and Related Agencies, Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies, Interior, Environment and Related Agencies.