President Donald Trump is asking Congress to increase defense spending to $1.5 trillion, the largest request in decades and the latest sign that the president is prioritizing military spending over domestic programs.
The Pentagon’s 2027 plans were confirmed in the White House summary of President Trump’s 2027 budget proposal released Friday. Trump’s proposal would cut non-defense spending by 10% by shifting some responsibilities to state and local governments, according to a White House summary.
Even before the U.S.-led war against Iran, the Republican president had signaled he wanted to ramp up defense spending to modernize the military for 21st century threats. Separately, the Pentagon last month proposed $200 billion for the war effort and backfilling munitions and supplies.
President Trump signaled this week that the military was a priority ahead of his address to the nation on the Iran war, setting the stage for a confrontation in Congress.
“We’re at war. We can’t take care of daycare,” President Trump said Wednesday at a private White House event.
“We can’t handle day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things,” he said. “They can do it on a state basis, but they can’t do it on a federal basis.”
The president’s broader annual budget is considered a reflection of the administration’s values and is not legally enforceable. This voluminous document typically highlights the administration’s priorities, but Congress, which handles federal spending issues, is free to, and often does, veto it.
The nation runs an annual deficit of nearly $2 trillion, the debt has ballooned to more than $39 trillion, and the federal balance sheet has been operating in the red for a long time.
Roughly two-thirds of the estimated $7 trillion in annual national spending covers the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs and Social Security income, which essentially grows on autopilot as the population ages.
The remainder of the annual budget is typically split evenly between the defense and domestic budgets, about $1 trillion each, where much of the debate in Congress takes place.
The massive Republican tax cut bill that President Trump signed into law last year elevated its priorities beyond the budget process, delivering at least $150 billion to the Pentagon and $170 billion to Trump’s immigration and deportation operations at the Department of Homeland Security over the next few years.
This year’s White House document, authored by Budget Director Russ Vought, is intended to provide a roadmap from the president to Congress as lawmakers craft their own budgets and annual spending bills to keep the government funded. Vought held a private phone call Thursday with House Republicans.
Congress still fighting over 2026 spending
The president’s budget proposal comes as the House and Senate are at odds over spending this year and a stalemate over DHS funding continues, with Democrats demanding changes to Trump’s immigration enforcement structure that Republicans are unwilling to accept.
President Trump announced Thursday that he will sign an executive order to pay all DHS employees who were not paid during the record partial government shutdown, which lasted 49 days. Republican leaders in Congress reached an agreement this week on a funding path for the department, but have yet to vote on any new legislation as lawmakers are away on spring break.
Last year, in his first budget proposal since returning to the White House, Mr. Trump aimed to fulfill his promise to drastically reduce the size and scope of the federal government, mirroring the efforts of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
As DOGE investigated one federal agency after another and Vought sought to recover funds, Congress did not always agree.
For example, President Trump called for cutting non-defense spending by about a fifth in the current budget year, which ends Sept. 30, but Congress has left such spending relatively flat.
Some programs that Trump tried to eliminate completely, such as family utility assistance, have received small increases in funding. Some received flat-rate funding, such as Community Development Block Grants, which states and local communities use to fund a series of projects aimed primarily at supporting low-income communities through new parks, sewer systems, and affordable housing.
Lawmakers are also focused on ensuring the government spends federal funds as directed by Congress. This year’s spending bill included what Sen. Patty Murray, ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, described as “hundreds of specific funding levels and directives” for the administration to follow.
