Senate

Susan Collins knocks funding cuts in White House budget proposal

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by Sophie Brams - 04/03/26 8:00 PM ET

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by Sophie Brams - 04/03/26 8:00 PM ET

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Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Friday knocked proposed eliminations and reductions to domestic program spending in the White House’s fiscal 2027 budget, a sign she may not be eager to sign off on President Trump’s request.

“While the Administration proposes a budget, Congress holds the power of the purse,” Collins wrote in a post on the social platform X.

The White House proposal calls for $1.5 trillion in defense spending, a roughly 42 percent boost to the Pentagon’s annual budget, and a $73 billion cut to non-defense spending.

Housing, community, environmental, health care and other programs the Trump administration has deemed “woke” are among those on the chopping block, according to the blueprint unveiled on Friday.

Collins, who is in a tough reelection fight for her Senate seat, described in a post on the social platform X what she viewed as “several shortcomings” in the request.

She pointed to “unwarranted” cuts in biomedical research and the termination of programs such as the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps low-income household pay for heating and cooling, Job Corps, and a program supporting low-income, first-generation students.

“These are proven programs that I strongly support,” Collins wrote.

She also criticized proposed discretionary spending cuts to the Essential Air Service, a program that subsidizes commercial flights to small and rural communities that lost service when airlines deregulated in 1978.

“After careful review, Congress decisively rejected these particular cuts last year,” Collins noted. The Maine lawmaker was one of the three Senate Republicans to vote against Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” last summer.

The White House is seeking to get $350 billion for “critical Administration priorities” such as more munitions and expanding the defense industrial base, through the budget reconciliation process.

That special process enables the Senate to advance spending, revenues or debt legislation with a simple majority rather than the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster.

“The Senate Appropriations Committee will now hold hearings with cabinet members and agency heads to review these recommendations and to explore other fiscally responsible proposals,” Collins said, outlining the next steps.

“I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who too often worked over the last year to impede the appropriations process and shut down federal agencies, will abandon their harmful tactics and work with us to govern responsibly.”

Democrats swiftly dismissed the White House budget proposal after it was released on Friday, with vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) casting it as “bleak and unacceptable.”

“President Trump wants to slash medical research to fund costly foreign wars. It doesn’t get more backward than that, and the only responsible thing to do with a budget this morally bankrupt is to toss it in the trash,” Murray said in a statement.

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