The FY 2027 budget President Trump proposed last week prioritizes military might above all else by cutting the social safety net in exchange for a $1.5 trillion request for missile defense and other military operations.
Where will this money come from? From the usual place: kids.
Children currently receive just 8.57% of all federal spending and the President’s proposed budget doubles down on underinvestment in kids. First Focus on Children’s analysis of the top 20 largest discretionary programs that benefit children found that investments in these programs would fall by $5.826 billion, or 5.73% under the White House’s proposed budget when compared to FY 2025.
Some of these programs were fully eliminated, and of those still funded, many received cuts. For example, the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) (- $ 200M), Summer EBT (- $ 591M), and Project-Based Rental Assistance (- $ 248.3M) all received cuts when compared to FY 2026, risking harm to children’s development, safety and well-being. Other important programs for kids are slated to be flat funded in the proposal, including Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant, which results in a funding cut in real dollars. For notes and numbers on programs the President cuts or completely eliminates, see First Focus on Children’s analysis at this link.
One of the great ironies here is that the money cut from kids’ programs will decimate them — in Arizona, 400,000 people, including 180,000 children, already have lost their SNAP benefits as a result of cuts contained in H.R. 1 — but it won’t buy many missiles.
A second budget reconciliation package planned by Congress when it returns from vacation next week would once again whittle away at SNAP and other children’s programs, First Focus on Children’s economic security expert Chad Bolt writes, and would save just $80 million over 10 years.
“While that is certainly a large dollar amount,” he writes, “in the context of the legislation in which it’s likely to be included and according to figures provided by President Trump’s own Pentagon officials, it will pay for just one hour of the war in Iran.” Check out Chad’s Instagram take.
Trading babies for bombs and billionaires will never make America great and represents a distinctly different point of view than previous generations. I was recently struck by a plaque with this quotation from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”