The Pennsylvania Independent
Rebekah Sager
04/10/2026
President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget submitted a budget request to Congress on April 3 for fiscal year 2027. In it, the office requested a record-breaking $1.5 trillion in funding for national defense, a 44% increase from last year.
In order to pay for the increased military spending, the budget proposes significant cuts to social service programs. It would take funding of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from $107.5 billion to $101.2 billion, according to the Food Research and Action Center. SNAP provides food benefits to low-income families, and it currently serves 42 million Americans.
In addition, Trump’s budget proposal includes reductions to the Women, Infants, and Children Program, which serves those who are pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum, and children under 5 years old. WIC currently provides monthly assistance with buying food at $26 per child, and $48-$52 for postpartum individuals. Trump’s budget proposal would roll these benefits back to amounts in place before the 2024 food package changes, which were just $9 for children and $12 for adults.
Lindsay Koshgarian, program director of the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan federal budget research organization, told the American Independent that Trump’s budget “really very clearly and heavily prioritized war funding and funding for mass deportations over any other programs.”
“One of the things that was so telling to me … in the top-line request, it was all about funding for war and for deportations, and it didn’t even have the words ‘health care’ in it. It didn’t even have the words ‘child care.’”
