Trump Pitches $1,000 Baby Bonus Accounts

By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey

Monday, June 9, 2025

Happy Monday! The House and Senate are both busy with fiscal bills this week. Republicans in the lower chamber are preparing to vote on a $9.4 billion White House package of DOGE cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting. They're also pressing ahead on their annual spending bills for fiscal 2026. Senate Republicans continue to work on their version of the GOP tax and spending bill, the legislation that Elon Musk publicly trashed last week, ahead of a self-imposed July 4 deadline.

Here's what else is happening.

Trump Pitches $1,000 Baby Bonus Accounts

President Donald Trump on Monday highlighted a proposal for a new, federally funded benefit that would automatically create investment accounts for every baby born in the U.S. over the four years of his second term.

Once dubbed "MAGA Accounts" and now referred to as "Trump Accounts," the program is included in the massive reconciliation bill passed by the House and currently before the Senate. It would provide $1,000 for every U.S. citizen born after December 31, 2024, and before January 1, 2029, with the money sitting in a tax-deferred account indexed to the broader stock market.

The initial funding for the accounts would come from the U.S. Treasury, and parents would be able to add up to $5,000 per year once the accounts are established. Withdrawals could begin starting at age 18, subject to capital gains taxes.

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the cost of the program would be roughly $17 billion over 10 years.

"This is a pro-family initiative that will help millions of Americans harness the strength of our economy to lift up the next generation," Trump said at an event at the White House. "And they'll really be getting a big jump on life, especially if we get a little bit lucky with some of the numbers and the economies into the future."

Trump was joined at the White House by business leaders and senior lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Uber, and Dell Technologies.

House Republicans Release 2026 Defense Spending Bill

The House Appropriations Committee on Monday released Republicans' proposed defense spending bill for 2026, moving ahead in the absence of a detailed budget request from the White House. The bill will be considered in a defense subcommittee on Tuesday in a closed markup session.

The bill would provide $831.5 billion in spending in the 2026 fiscal year, the same as in 2025 and roughly matching the topline figure provided by the Office of Management and Budget in the president's "skinny budget" in May.

The separate reconciliation bill under consideration in the Senate is expected to add to 2026 spending levels; the current version of that bill adds another $113 billion for defense and billions more for homeland security. The Senate may push that significantly higher.

Among other things, the appropriations bill provides $13 billion for missile defense programs, an area of development that could get a $25 billion boost through the reconciliation bill to fund President Trump's Gold Dome program.

The annual spending bill would also provide $36.9 billion for 28 ships for the Navy, and $1.5 billion to build up the defense industrial base focused on shipbuilding. The Air Force could receive $8.5 billion to purchase 69 F-35 fighters, as well as $3.8 billion to buy the new stealth B-21 Raider.

All military personnel would receive a 3.8% increase in basic pay starting January 1, 2026. Civilian employment would be reduced by roughly 45,000.

"Together, with the significant defense funding advancing through Congress as part of the reconciliation process, the FY26 bill will lift total defense spending over $1 trillion in the next fiscal year, representing a historic commitment to strengthening and modernizing America's national defense," Rep. Ken Calvert, the California Republican who serves as the Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said.

Democrats complained that the Trump administration failed to submit a timely and detailed budget request and warned that the Republican defense plan would jeopardize military preparedness and could open the door to unilateral cuts.

"This is not a bill meant to responsibly fund our nation's defense and promote and protect democracy," Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said in a statement. "Instead, this bill advances and acquiesces to Elon Musk's and President Trump's reckless purging of critical civilian personnel, their equivocation on support for Ukraine, and their relentless politicizing of our troops."

Hundreds of NIH Employees Protest 'Harmful' Cuts

Hundreds of scientists and staffers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are publicly protesting Trump administration policies that they say politicize science, threaten their work and "harm the health of Americans and people across the globe."

In a letter to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the NIH director, the employees lay out a series of concerns. They allege that they continue to face pressure "to implement harmful measures" and that the administration is making politicized, indiscriminate decisions on grants and contracts. They say that since Trump was inaugurated on January 20, NIH has terminated 2,100 research grants totaling about $9.5 billion and $2.6 billion in contracts - and that those decisions throw away years of work and waste millions of dollars.

"Ending a $5 million research study when it is 80% complete does not save $1 million, it wastes $4 million," they write. They add that the decisions risk people's health: "NIH trials are being halted without regard to participant safety, abruptly stopping medications or leaving participants with unmonitored device implants."

The letter warns that the "unprecedented reduction in NIH spending" is not a move toward greater efficiency "but rather a dramatic reduction in life-saving research" and a violation of Bhattacharya's duty to spend congressionally appropriated funds for NIH research.

The letter was also sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of Congress who oversee the NIH. Kennedy has led a reorganization of U.S. government health agencies that has reportedly cut some 5,000 NIH employees and contractors.

The NIH employees titled their letter the "Bethesda Declaration," modeled after the "Great Barrington Declaration," an open letter that Bhattacharya and others published in October 2020 that criticized pandemic lockdowns and other aspects of the Covid-19 response.

Bhattacharya is set to testify tomorrow before a Senate Appropriations panel about the Trump administration's fiscal 2026 budget request. The White House proposal would slash NIH funding by $18 billion, or about 40%.

In a statement, Bhattacharya said that "dissent in science is productive" but added that the protest letter includes "some fundamental misconceptions about the policy directions the NIH has taken in recent months." He said that the NIH is "working to remove ideological influence from science," strengthen transparency and accountability and "responsibly manage taxpayer dollars."

Number of the Day: $7 Million

The Trump administration's war on waste, fraud and abuse is resulting in some new government waste. One example: The Department of Education is paying more than $7 million a month - and has already paid more than $21 million - to employees it has put on leave while a court battle plays out over their firings by the Trump administration. Those numbers, as reported by CNN, come from an analysis by the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, the union that represents Education Department workers. The union reportedly says its calculations underestimate the real cost involved as they do not include benefits or managers' pay.

President Donald Trump is pushing to dismantle the department, but a federal court last month blocked the administration's plan. Fired employees were reinstated but placed on administrative leave, meaning they are not allowed to work. "Dozens of government agencies are involved in lawsuits challenging White House directives cutting their workforce, with workers similarly placed on administrative leave and unable to work across Washington," CNN's Sunlen Serfaty reports.

The payments could continue for years as the legal battle plays out, though the administration reportedly has offered some Department of Education employees settlement payments if they quit and relinquish any chance of being reinstated.

Get the latest on Washington's budget battles and more with The Fiscal Times email newsletter every weekday. Sign up today.

Trump Pitches $1,000 Baby Bonus Accounts

Trump Pitches $1,000 Baby Bonus Accounts

House Republicans Release 2026 Defense Spending Bill

Hundreds of NIH Employees Protest 'Harmful' Cuts

Number of the Day: $7 Million

Fiscal News Roundup

Views and Analysis