WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Susan Collins criticized parts of President Donald Trump’s 2026 budget proposal, including a real-terms cut to defense spending that the administration is billing as an increase as well as the targeted end of a fuel aid program.
The Republican president’s budget showed a desire to crack down on diversity programs and initiatives to address climate change. But the administration has yet to release key details. Members of Congress, including Collins, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, also are indicating a desire to assert their role in the process.
Budgets do not become law but serve as a touchstone for the upcoming fiscal year debates. Trump’s proposal arrives after he unilaterally imposed what could be hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases in the form of tariffs, setting off a trade war that has consumers, CEOs and foreign leaders worried about a possible economic downturn.
The nation’s estimated $7 trillion-plus federal budget has been growing steadily, with annual deficits fast approaching $2 trillion and the annual interest payments on the debt almost $1 trillion. The nation’s debt load, at $36 trillion, is ballooning.
Trump’s proposal seeks to cut discretionary spending by a total of 7.6 percent next year, according to the administration’s summary. It said its proposal includes a 13 percent increase in national security spending, but it would actually be a cut because it includes money from a spending roadmap that Congress has not authorized yet.
That drew opposition from Republican hawks including Collins and former Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The Maine senator also keyed in on Trump targeting the end of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which looms large in Maine and other cold states.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would lose nearly $3.6 billion under the plan, while the National Institutes of Health would face a steep cut of almost $18 billion. The State Department and international programs would lose 84 percent of their money, a cut that reflects the existing efforts by adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“This request has come to Congress late, and key details still remain outstanding,” Collins said in a statement.
Democrats are prepared to assail Trump’s budget as further evidence that the Republican administration is intent on gutting government programs that Americans depend on.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, who spoke with Trump multiple times this week, is racing to have the president’s “big, beautiful bill” approved by the House by Memorial Day and sent on to the Senate. But deep differences remain among the Republicans, who are trying to pass that big bill over the objections of Democrats.
Cabinet officials are expected to start trekking to Capitol Hill to testify about their various requests in the president’s budget. Collins and her committee will be at the center of that, with the Maine senator starting hearings this week and promising “an aggressive hearing schedule” on the proposal.
Congress approves federal programs and funds them through the appropriations process. That system often breaks down, forcing lawmakers to pass stopgap spending bills to keep the government funded and avoid federal shutdowns. That’s what happened earlier this year, when Maine lost hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks that Collins had worked to secure.
“Ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse,” she said in her statement.
Story by Lisa Mascaro and Josh Boak. BDN writer Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.
