$1.2 Trillion Deal Defies Trump

Close-up of a hundred dollar bill in front of an American flag — TRUMP VS TRILLION DOLLAR DEAL

Washington’s spending machine just proved it can override a sitting president’s budget cuts—even with Republicans holding the House.

Story Snapshot

The Republican-led House passed a $1.2 trillion FY2026 funding package on Jan. 22, 2026, sending it to the Senate ahead of a Jan. 30 shutdown deadline.
The package reverses major parts of President Trump’s “skinny budget,” which sought deep reductions to non-defense discretionary spending.
Lawmakers restored funding for medical research, education, housing, transit projects, and refugee aid, while rejecting Trump’s push to eliminate the Department of Education.
The bill boosts defense funding above the administration’s request and funds the government through Sept. 30, 2026.

House Passage Shows Congress Still Holds the Purse Strings

House lawmakers approved a four-part FY2026 funding package totaling about $1.2 trillion on Jan. 22, setting up Senate action before the Jan. 30 deadline to avoid a shutdown. Most of the bills passed with a wide bipartisan margin, while the Homeland Security measure was much tighter. The legislation would fund the government through Sept. 30, 2026, and President Trump is expected to sign it despite key reversals of his proposed cuts.

Congress declined to adopt many of Trump’s proposed spending cuts, according to reports. https://t.co/Ove0tFXLJ8

— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) February 17, 2026

The most important takeaway is constitutional as much as political: Congress—under Article I—controls appropriations, and this vote underscores that reality even under unified Republican leadership in the House.

Democrats highlighted that courts tend to enforce congressional spending decisions when administrations attempt to withhold funds. For voters who backed Trump to rein in Washington, the episode is a reminder that agencies don’t shrink on a slogan; they shrink only when lawmakers lock in reductions line-by-line.

Trump’s “Skinny Budget” Sought Steep Domestic Cuts and Agency Restructuring

The White House’s FY2026 “skinny” budget proposed a sharp shift in priorities: hold defense around $893 billion while cutting non-defense discretionary spending by 23%, a reduction of roughly $163 billion.

The proposal targeted major reductions at agencies such as EPA, HUD, Labor, and Education, and it also called for eliminating certain functions outright, including an attempt to zero out the Department of Education and end USAID, reflecting the administration’s push for smaller government.

Budget documents and outside summaries described the proposed reductions as extending into science, health, and training programs, including steep cuts to agencies such as the National Science Foundation and NASA and major reductions at HHS.

Critics argued the domestic reductions would ripple through services used by working families, while supporters framed the plan as a long-overdue correction after years of spending growth. The available reporting also notes that Congress historically moderates such requests, even under the same party.

What Congress Restored—and What It Still Cut

The final House package restored funding that Trump’s budget aimed to reduce, including money tied to medical research (including NIH-related funding), education programs, housing assistance, refugee aid, and transit projects such as the Gateway tunnel.

The bill also included funding for data functions such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics and support for museums. On the other side of the ledger, the reporting indicates the package followed through on eliminating USAID and ending federal support for public broadcasting.

The bill also addressed workforce policy: it ends a federal layoff pause and allows federal hiring to resume. For many taxpayers, that mix will read as a contradiction—Washington loosens the brake on hiring while arguing about restraint.

For conservatives focused on limiting bureaucracy, that detail matters because headcount often drives future baseline budgets. At the same time, the House’s broader aim was to avert a shutdown and keep essential operations running through the fiscal year.

Defense, Domestic Tradeoffs, and the Politics of Avoiding a Shutdown

On national security, the package sets defense spending at about $839 billion and, according to the reporting, exceeds the White House request. That outcome fits a familiar pattern: lawmakers often protect or expand defense while fighting over domestic accounts.

The short-term effect is stability—no Jan. 30 shutdown—while the longer-term effect is a FY2026 baseline that rejects the administration’s proposed 23% non-defense discretionary reduction and locks in higher funding levels than fiscal hawks wanted.

Politically, the vote shows why large spending deals often survive even in a Republican-led House: members face pressure from constituents tied to research dollars, housing programs, local transit projects, and agency services, while leadership fears the economic and operational disruption of a shutdown.

With President Trump expected to sign the bill, the next test becomes what comes after—whether the administration pursues a rescissions package or other lawful tools to push reductions, and whether Congress is willing to back those efforts.