Hell No to MAGA's Budget Swindle!
It's all about the money – who gets it, who doesn't; who wins who loses. In normal times, the federal budgeting and appropriations process is a complex, messy dog fight of greed, special interests, ideological agendas, and partisan maneuvering. But we no longer live in normal times. Under Trump, the MAGA regime has created a sewer of lies and deceits, illegal mass-firings and impoundments, and unconstitutional power-grabs.
Yet through their bewildering fog of agency shutdowns, appropriation, debt ceiling, and reconciliation legislation, unilateral tariffs, and now Trump's 2026 Budget proposal, the goals of the MAGA regime remain clear:
Grant enormous tax cuts to giant corporations and the obscenely rich.
Massively increase military, police, and anti-immigrant spending.
Slash domestic spending, the social safety net, and programs that protect and benefit We the People.
Cripple and gut health, safety, environment, and consumer regulations and oversight so that corporations, institutions, and agencies can lie, cheat, steal, pollute, and discriminate with impunity.
Revert to, and mandate, the white-supremacist racial hierarchies and Christian fundamentalist social norms of the past – which they label Making America Great Again.
In their own words, Trump's proposed budget demands an unprecedented increase in defense spending of, “13 percent to $1.01 trillion.” The White House Office Management & Budget (OMB) brags that their proposal, “...is the lowest non-defense spending level since 2017,” “...reduces non-defense discretionary [spending] by $163 billion or 23 percent...” and “...increases appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security by nearly 65 percent.”
There used to be a bipartisan agreement to balance defense and non-defense spending 50-50. But during Trump's first reign and then the Biden administration there has been a steady shift towards military over domestic spending:
Rough Defense vs Domestic Discretionary Spending Proporstions | ||
|---|---|---|
Defense* | Domestic | |
End of Obama administration | 50% | 50% |
End of Biden administration | 55% | 45% |
Trump's budget demands | 64% | 36% |
* What the term "defense spending" actually includes varies widely. Sometimes it includes the $20-$30 billion for a new generation of nuclear weapons, sometimes it doesn't. Veterans benefits and military base-building, maybe yes, maybe no. So the dollar and percentage amounts used by politicians, agencies, and reporters widely vary. And, of course, the “Black Budget” for national security operations and intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, et al) is completely secret from most of Congress and all of the American public. So all “defense spending” figures should be taken with a large grain of salt.
The language of Trump's 2026 Budget Proposal and the OMB's explainer make plain the political agenda of the GOP and MAGA regime by, for example, boasting about, “...eliminating so-called Fair Housing programs that waged war on America’s suburbs, ending the Environmental Protection Agency’s unfair harassment of citizens over 'environmental justice.' And railing against, “intersectionality, racial equity, and LGBTQIA+ programming,” “... funding niche non-governmental organizations and institutions of higher education committed to radical gender and climate ideologies ...” and “funding cultural Marxism, radical Green New Scams, and even our own invasion.”
The MAGA regime's own documents clearly target housing, health (including Medicaid), food & nutrition, education, environmental protection, regulatory oversight, science research, parks, culture, foreign affairs, and business and tax-fraud programs and agencies for cuts of 15%, 30%, 50% or total elimination. They assure us they are not proposing to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits – but they fail to mention the drastic personnel reductions and office closures which are already underway and will make it harder for people to access or receive benefits that they themselves paid for through deductions from their paychecks. And it is obvious that their largest proposed cuts target the poorest Americans. For example, $26.7 billion from rent assistance and public and senior housing, with an inevitable result of more homeless people living under bridges.
Appropriations are how policies are actually imposed. If enacted as written, the MAGA regime's budget bills are designed to inflict on the American people a far-right, extremist agenda that is deeply unpopular – even among many of those who voted for Trump.
Call, write, email, or text your Representative and Senators and tell them to:
Vote "NO" on all budget, appropriations, Continuing Resolutions (CR), and debt-ceiling legislation that fails to include ironclad requirements that Trump/Musk must obey and execute the laws as adopted by Congress.
Adamantly oppose MAGA's tax-cuts for the wealthy while everyone else suffers budget swindle.
Use every procedural tool possible to slow down House and Senate business and expose Republican duplicity.
References
Reconciliation Bill 2025, current draft.
Trump Proposes $163 Billion in Cuts Across Government in New Budget, NY Times (no paywall) 5/2/25
Unpacking Trump's budget proposal and where he wants to cut billions in spending. PBS. 5/2/25
How Trump's budget proposals could affect lower-income Americans. Axios. 5/3/25
‘Millions out on the street virtually overnight’: How Trump’s budget proposal could affect California. Cal Matters. 5/5/25