By John Hart | Published at Open the Books Substack

President Trump released his Fiscal Year 2026 budget request today. Key highlights include a proposed 22.6 percent reduction in non-defense discretionary budget authority worth $163 billion, as well as a proposed $113 billion increase (13 percent) in defense spending.

 

In normal years, presidential budget resolutions are dismissed as little more than ceremonial messaging documents and “expressions of values” or, more precisely, virtue-signaling.

 

In the Clinton years, Republicans reveled at offering the president’s budgets as stand-alone measures, which would fail spectacularly.

This budget, however, truly is different. We’re living through a once or twice-in-a-generation moment in which the country is fundamentally re-examining the proper role and scope of the federal government. President Trump’s budget is a statement of priorities, but it is also an opening bid in a consequential negotiation with Congress about the future of the federal government.

 

The president’s request should be taken as just that. A request. I’m sympathetic to those who want to see more aggressive savings, and more funds redirected from within the Pentagon toward defense. Trump’s savings target should be taken as a floor rather than a ceiling. Congress has every right to go further and leverage the DOGE era to dramatically downsize and reorganize the administrative state.

 

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