Congress is advancing FY26 spending bills, including some with dramatic staffing cuts

Lawmakers in both chambers are moving forward with spending bills for fiscal 2026, most of which reject President Trump’s most drastic cut proposals even as many include mandates to shed federal staff. 

House Republicans have put forward appropriations measures that contain some significant cuts and have not won Democratic support, though they largely curbed the sharpest reductions Trump requested in his budget blueprint. In the Senate, meanwhile, funding bills have moved forward with broad bipartisan support that mostly keep spending flat or provide small increases. 

Both chambers’ spending panels have advanced fiscal 2026 spending bills for the legislative branch and the Agriculture Department, though the Senate did so in nearly unanimous votes while the House was divided by party. The House panel has also approved, along party lines, bills to fund the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs. The VA bill has already advanced on the House floor. 

House Republicans have put forward legislation to fund the departments of the Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, State, Commerce, Energy and Justice, as well as other agencies, and are holding committee votes on them this week. 

Several of the House measures contain provisions to slash agency workforces. Republicans boasted their Transportation and HUD bill, for example, would cut the latter agency’s workforce by 26% to support reductions in force Secretary Scott Turner plans to implement. They said all other components funded by the bill would see staffing cuts of 5% with the exception of those offices related to transportation safety. The majority said funding for the Federal Aviation Administration would allow for the hiring of 2,500 air traffic controllers—a longstanding bipartisan priority—though Democrats noted the funding is less than the amounts provided in the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act. 

House Republicans are looking to cut FBI funding by 3% and met Trump’s request to slash the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by 26%, which Democrats said would lead to losing thousands of agents across the two agencies. 

The same spending bill would keep NASA funding flat, rejecting the nearly 25% cut Trump proposed. Still, Democrats lamented reductions to spending on NASA science that Republicans did include. The National Science Foundation would see a 23% cut, though the agency would fare significantly better than it would under Trump’s proposed 57% gutting. NOAA would see a 5% cut, far less severe than the 18% reduction Trump suggested in his budget. 

The Interior Department would see nearly flat funding under the House plan, mostly avoiding the nearly $2 billion in cuts Trump had proposed. Still, the National Park Service would see a 6% reduction. That would stave off much of the 30% cut Trump proposed, but Democrats warned even that trimming amounted to “threatening Americans’ ability to enjoy public lands.” Most Interior components would see small decreases to their budgets, which would be mostly offset by increases to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education. 

The Environmental Protection Agency would experience a dramatic 23% cut in fiscal 2026, which is still faring better than the more than 50% cut Trump proposed. Democrats said the redactions would still be “crippling” for the agency and endanger public health and the climate, while Republicans said they were “rightsizing” the agency’s funding level. 

The U.S. Forest Service would see a slight dip to its non-fire funding under the House Republican bill, but would avoid the nearly 30% cut Trump had outlined. The committee opted not to eliminate programs such as Forest and Rangeland Research and State, Private and Tribal Forestry, which Trump called for zeroing out. 

The House has proposed cutting the State Department and other foreign affairs-focused agencies by 22%. 

In the Senate, the appropriations committee approved its USDA bill unanimously and its legislative branch measure with only one dissension. The Agriculture measure provides funding for international food aid programs that Trump had proposed eliminating, such as Food for Peace and the McGovern-Dole Food for Education program. The Food and Drug Administration would receive a slight funding bump, with senators rejecting the 11% reduction Trump proposed. 

“At the end of the day, I do believe these bills are a good, compromise starting point—delivering critical resources to continue key programs and make targeted new investments, rejecting the president’s truly harmful proposed cuts, and steering clear of the extreme partisan policies the president has requested and that we’ve seen in the House bills over the last few years,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the appropriations panel. 

Murray called it vital that lawmakers pass actual, line-by-line spending bills for fiscal 2026 and avoid the year-long stopgap measure Congress approved for the current fiscal year.  

“I believe it’s more important than ever that we ensure our constituents’ voices are heard by passing bipartisan, full-year spending bills,” Murray said. “We cannot afford another disastrous slush fund CR that lets political appointees and bureaucrats—who have never been to our states—call the shots.”

She added Congress must not only pass appropriations bills, but defend them from the Trump administration’s efforts to subsequently withhold funds. The Senate is scheduled to vote this week on a House-backed package to rescind $9.4 billion from fiscal 2025 spending related to foreign aid and public broadcasting. The White House is also considering using a tactic to withhold funding at the end of the year without congressional approval, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has said.