Trump Proposes Cuts to Family Safety Net Programs Amid Iran War

The White House sought roughly $1.5 trillion for defense in its fiscal 2027 budget request, a proposal that would boost military spending to its highest point in modern history as the Trump administration waged its war with Iran. The budget simultaneously slashed nondefense spending by 10 percent, a $73 billion cut that would primarily affect housing, social services, health care, and other domestic programs the administration derided as "woke."

The United States and Israel started the war on February 28 with surprise airstrikes on sites and cities across Iran, assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several other Iranian officials and inflicting over a hundred civilian casualties. The Pentagon separately asked Congress for $200 billion to fund the campaign, and officials told lawmakers the first six days of fighting had cost more than $11.3 billion. Analysts estimated the United States was spending around $1 billion per day in its operations.

Trump telegraphed the trade-off before the budget's April 3 release. "We're fighting wars. We can't take care of day care," he said at a private White House event on Wednesday. "It's not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare — all these individual things," he continued. He defined the federal government's singular obligation in stark terms: "We have to take care of one thing: military protection."

The 2027 fiscal year budget included $1.1 trillion in "base discretionary budget authority" specifically for the Defense Department as well as a $350 billion request in "additional mandatory resources." The $1.5 trillion total represented an increase of about $455 billion over fiscal year 2026. To offset part of that expansion, the White House proposed cuts that included reductions to health research, K-12 and higher education, renewable energy and climate grants, a low-income housing energy program, and community development block grants. Advocacy groups warned that programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and possibly even Medicare remained at risk through a potential second reconciliation bill.

Budget Director Russell Vought, writing in the proposal's preface, argued that "President Trump promised to reinvest in America's national security infrastructure, to make sure our nation is safe in a dangerous world."

Democrats pushed back hard. Representative Thanedar wrote on X: "He's CHOOSING to cut Medicaid and Medicare for more money for war." House Budget Committee Democrats released a formal rebuttal calling the plan one that "puts America last," contending that working families were being asked to absorb the fiscal cost of a war through reduced access to health care, nutrition, and housing.

Republicans and Democrats alike expressed concern about the defense request, citing the administration's limited information sharing on Iran war progress, and some Republicans were not fully supportive of proposed cuts to agencies in their districts. The scale of the proposed domestic reductions also lacked precedent in recent legislative history: in 2023, House Republican appropriators attempted funding bills with just $60 billion in nondefense cuts, and those efforts stalled without becoming law.

Iran had blocked most oil transit through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began in late February. On April 5, Trump threatened to attack Iran's power plants and bridges if the strait was not reopened within two days. By April 7, he threatened to annihilate the Iranian nation if a deal was not reached. The budget made plain where the administration intended to find the money for whatever came next.