Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) stated she has “serious objections” to the protection funding proposals in President Trump’s fiscal 2026 price range request, whereas additionally taking problem with a few of the nondefense packages being focused.
In a press release on Friday, Collins known as Trump’s request “simply one step in the annual budget process,” adding the “request has come to Congress late, and key details still remain outstanding.”
“Based on my initial review, however, I have serious objections to the proposed freeze in our defense funding given the security challenges we face and to the proposed funding cuts to – and in some cases elimination of – programs like LIHEAP, TRIO, and those that support biomedical research,” Collins stated, referring to the Low Revenue Residence Power Help Program and Division of Training scholar outreach packages.
She added, “ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse.”
“The Appropriations Committee has an aggressive hearing schedule to learn more about the President’s proposal and assess funding needs for the coming year.”
Workplace of Administration and Funds (OMB) Director Russell Vought informed Collins in a letter Friday morning that the presidential request requires a 13 p.c enhance in protection spending that will permit for a complete of roughly $1 trillion for fiscal 2026. On the similar time, the proposed price range requires steep cuts to nondefense packages.
The price range assumes a few of the enhance could be supplied by Trump’s “big, beautiful” invoice that Republicans are working to assemble in Congress.
Their hope is to make use of a course of referred to as price range reconciliation to advance the president’s tax agenda, whereas additionally making additional cuts to spending and boosting funding for protection and the president’s deportation plans. Whereas the method may be time-consuming and restrictive, it could finally permit Republicans to jam by such a bundle with out having to fret about seemingly Democratic opposition within the Senate.
“Under the proposal, a portion of these increases-at least $325 billion assumed in the budget resolution recently agreed to by the Congress-would be provided through reconciliation, to ensure that our military and other agencies repelling the invasion of our border have the resources needed to complete the mission,” Vought wrote.
Nevertheless, protection hawks have been pushing again on the proposal.
“President Trump successfully campaigned on a Peace Through Strength agenda, but his advisers at the Office of Management and Budget were apparently not listening,” Senate Armed Companies Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) stated in a press release Friday. “For the defense budget, OMB has requested a fifth year straight of Biden administration funding, leaving military spending flat, which is a cut in real terms.”
Wicker added that he has stated “for months that reconciliation defense spending does not replace the need for real growth in the military’s base budget.”
“That is what I will work to achieve in Congress with President Trump and [Defense] Secretary [Pete] Hegseth to implement the President’s Peace Through Strength agenda.”
In defending the price range on Friday, Vought later wrote on social platform X that the president’s technique is geared toward growing “defense spending to $1 trillion,” whereas additionally “ensuring that only Republican-votes are needed by using reconciliation to secure those increases without Democrats insisting on increasing wasteful government.”
Laborious-line conservatives are backing the technique on X, with Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) calling the transfer a “wise paradigm shift” whereby Republicans would “no longer let Democrats hold defense hostage for woke, weaponized bureaucrats – AND – we fund REAL defense modernization on OUR terms in reconciliation.”
