Trump’s 2027 Budget Seeks $1.5 Trillion for Defense, 10% Domestic Cuts

The White House sent Congress its fiscal 2027 budget outline on Friday, asking for $1.5 trillion for the Defense Department and cutting nondefense spending by 10 percent, according to CBS News and the Associated Press. The request, prepared by Budget Director Russ Vought, would be the largest defense proposal in decades, the AP reported. CBS News put the increase at 42 percent over current levels.

CBS News said the plan would cut nondefense spending by $73 billion and that the administration partly describes the reductions as shifting programs to states and localities. President Trump defended that approach. “We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care,” he said, according to the AP, which also reported that he suggested programs such as Medicaid and Medicare could be handled “on a state basis.”

The military money would pay for a 5 to 7 percent raise for troops, $65.8 billion for new ships and for restocking munitions used in the Iran war, and funding for Golden Dome, a space-based missile defense system, CBS News reported. The AP noted that the Pentagon separately proposed $200 billion for the Iran war effort and to replenish munitions and supplies, and that the 2025 tax law already provides at least $150 billion for the Pentagon over several years.

The request would trim a long list of domestic programs. CBS News listed a $5 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health, $768 million from refugee resettlement, $819 million from the Unaccompanied Alien Children program, nearly 30 Justice Department grants eliminated and a $52 million cut to the Transportation Security Administration that would include privatizing screening at smaller airports. It would also raise some spending, including $481 million more for air traffic controllers and aviation safety and $605 million for National Guard mobilizations in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Trump’s case for the increase is that the country faces a more dangerous world. He proposed the $1.5 trillion figure in January, citing “troubled and dangerous times,” the AP reported then, and the White House says the defense increase exceeds even the Reagan buildup, according to CBS News.

A budget outline does not have the force of law. The AP noted that Congress can reject it, and CBS News said lawmakers may set substantially different spending levels. Annual appropriations bills, which must pass before the fiscal year begins Oct. 1 to avoid a shutdown, will be the real test. The Department of Homeland Security is already in a record-long partial shutdown, the AP reported.

The size of the defense request also sets up a collision with the deficit. The outline pairs a roughly 40 percent increase for the Pentagon with cuts of one-tenth to everything else, and the final numbers will depend on how Congress responds to either half.