It’s Congress’ job to set funding levels for government agencies, but the annual budget process starts with a request from the president.
For the second year in a row, the Trump administration is asking Congress to slash budgets for labor law enforcement, medical research, and environmental protection while giving the military the biggest peacetime increase in U.S. history.
Here’s some of what the April 3 budget proposal asks Congress to do for the 2027 Fiscal Year that begins October 1, 2026:
Slash the Labor Department budget from its current $13.3 billion to $9.9 billion (a 25.9% cut). Included in that proposed cut is the total elimination of three programs: Job Corps, the Women’s Bureau (which promotes the welfare of working women through research and outreach), and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (the agency that holds federal contractors responsible for affirmative action programs). The Trump administration targeted Job Corps for elimination last year as well, but Congress maintained its funding. The contract compliance department oversees affirmative action programs in government procurement that the Trump administration has ordered to be terminated. The proposed Labor Department budget also includes a $25 million cut (10%) for the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, which enforces minimum wage, overtime, and child labor laws.
Within the DOL budget cut is a proposed 15% reduction of the federal OSHA enforcement budget — from $243 million to $210.3 million. OSHA enforces the requirement that employers provide safe workplaces. Enforcement staff is already at its lowest level in the agency’s 55-year history, and OSHA has so few inspectors that it would take 191 years to inspect every workplace in the country that’s under its jurisdiction. (Fortunately, states like Oregon, Washington, and California have more robust state-level OSHA enforcement.)
Eliminate OSHA’s Susan Harwood training grant program for a $13 million savings. The program awards competitive grants to nonprofit organizations to train workers and employers on how to prevent workplace safety hazards. The Trump administration’s budget document explains that Harwood grants have funded “woke organizations” — including the Laborers International Union of North America.
Cut the budget of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by $8.7 million. The NLRB administers union certification elections and prosecutes employer violations of workers rights to unionize. That would be a minor cut to an agency that had a $294 million budget this year, but it would prevent progress on a severe backlog of unfair labor practice cases.
Cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by more than half from $8.8 billion to $4.2 billion.
Cut the IRS budget by $1.4 billion, which would be the largest cut in the agency’s history. That cut would be on top of a $1.1 billion cut that Congress approved last year that resulted in a 27% reduction in IRS staff. Most of the new proposed cut—nearly $900 million—would come out of the agency’s enforcement capabilities. The IRS investigates tax fraud, so cuts to its budget actually cost the U.S. Treasury money. In the first year of Trump administration, the IRS slashed its target for audits of taxpayers with more than $10 million in annual income by one third.
Cut the budget of the National Institutes of Health by $5 billion. NIH is the world’s biggest funder of medical research.
Cut funding for housing, including a moratorium on new Section 8 vouchers to subsidize rents.
Meanwhile, Trump is asking for $1.5 trillion for the military, a 40% increase over current spending.
Again, the president’s budget request is just a reflection of the administration’s values and priorities. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to decide how and how much to spend. After Congress receives the president’s proposal, the House and Senate create their own budget proposals that are merged amid negotiations into final funding bills. If last year’s budget is any sign, Congress isn’t likely to act on many of the administration’s proposed cuts. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) — vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee — called the vision outlined in Trump’s budget “bleak and unacceptable.”
“President Trump wants to slash medical research to fund costly foreign wars,” Murray said in an April 3 press statement. “It doesn’t get more backward than that, and the only responsible thing to do with a budget this morally bankrupt is to toss it in the trash.”
