Senator Murray on President Trump’s Budget Request

Trump proposes slashing domestic investments while increasing defense spending by half a trillion dollars more

ICYMI: Trump on Wednesday: "It's not possible for us to take of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare … We have to take care of one thing: military protection."

Washington, D.C. - Today, Senator Patty Murray, Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement on the release of President Trump's fiscal year 2027 budget request, which proposes increasing defense spending by roughly half a trillion dollars while slashing and even defunding key domestic programs that American families count on every day.

"The vision President Trump has outlined for America in his budget is bleak and unacceptable. President Trump wants to slash medical research to fund costly foreign wars. 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.

"After passing the largest cuts to health care in American history, all to fund billionaire tax breaks and give ICE more money than most militaries, President Trump now wants Congress to defund dozens of programs that help students so that he can send other people's kids to fight a war with no justification. And after sending prices skyrocketing with his stupid tariffs and reckless war, President Trump is now proposing to eliminate programs that help families afford the basics-like LIHEAP.

"This week, President Trump said that our country cannot afford to help families with child care or health care-but his own budget proves what a ridiculous farce that is. Imagine how many families we could help if, instead of giving the Pentagon more money than they can even figure out what to do with, we cut people's heating bills in half and made child care affordable for every family in America.

"Our national defense budget should not be dictated by a president who is sending servicemembers into harm's way in reckless foreign wars-and who woke up one day and decided to send his aides scrambling to figure out how on earth they could spend half a trillion dollars more, which the Pentagon can't possibly spend responsibly. Donald Trump might be happy to spend more money on bombs in the Middle East than on families here in America-but I am not.

"Last year, I said I'd rip up President Trump's budget and make sure Congress wrote a new one instead-that's exactly what we did and will do again. The American people want their tax dollars going toward investments that help everyone and make life more affordable-the basics like utilities and child care. Those are the investments I am going to fight for. Trump wants to build a ballroom-I want to build more affordable housing, and only one of us sits on the Appropriations Committee."

President Trump's budget proposes slashing domestic investments by $73 billion while massively increasing the defense budget by roughly half a trillion dollars more (through both annual appropriations and reconciliation) in order to achieve an unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense budget that dwarfs all other non-defense discretionary (NDD) spending. This sum does not include a separate supplemental funding request expected for the Iran war.

• President Trump arbitrarily announced on Truth Social in early January that he wanted a $1.5 trillion defense budget-and sent his aides scrambling to produce a request that met his topline.
• Trump's budget seeks to dramatically cut back on domestic investments as American families struggle to make ends meet with higher costs, and as there are already immense strains on the non-defense budget, which has been roughly flat for three successive fiscal years, while defense spending has continued to grow. Non-defense programs will be further strained with the expiration at the end of fiscal year 2026 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which has supported key non-defense priorities with tens of billions of dollars in funding each year.

President Trump's budget proposes a $404 million cut in funding for the Hanford nuclear clean-up site-and proposes eliminating contingency funding for the Office of River Protection's High Level Waste (HLW) facility.

On President Trump's proposed budget for Hanford, Senator Murray said:

"Hanford is the largest nuclear cleanup site in our country, and it is not only dangerous, but costs more in the long run to cut corners on nuclear waste cleanup. Trump's proposed budget is a slap in the face to the Tri-Cities, threatening the Hanford cleanup mission and the community with this absurd budget request. This proposal is completely unacceptable. I'll be doing everything I can to set this president straight on the importance of the Hanford cleanup-and if he still doesn't get it, I'm going to make sure Congress funds it anyway. The federal government has a moral and legal obligation here-and as long as I help lead the appropriations committee, Congress is going to meet that obligation."

More toplines on President Trump's budget request will be distributed later today and made available HERE.

###