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'A Disgrace': Trump Budget Gives $1 Trillion to Military While Slashing Programs for Working Class
"President Trump has made his priorities clear as day: He wants to outright defund programs that help working Americans while he shovels massive tax breaks at billionaires like himself."
May 02, 2025
The budget blueprint that U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled Friday would give a record $1.01 trillion to the American military for the coming fiscal year while imposing $163 billion in total cuts to housing, education, healthcare, climate, and labor programs.
The proposal, released by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, was viewed by Democratic lawmakers and other critics as a clear statement of the White House's intent to gut programs that working class Americans rely on while pursuing another round of tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and bolstering the Pentagon, a morass of waste and abuse.
"President Trump has made his priorities clear as day," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "He wants to outright defund programs that help working Americans while he shovels massive tax breaks at billionaires like himself and raises taxes on middle-class Americans with his reckless tariffs."
"This president believes we should shred at least $163 billion in investments here at home that make all the difference for families and have been essential to America's success—but that we should hand billionaires and the biggest corporations trillions in new tax breaks," Murray added. "That is outrageous—and it should offend every hardworking American who wants their tax dollars to help them live a good life, not pad the pockets of billionaires."
"Trump is prioritizing his own wallet and the tax benefits of his wealthy donors—leaving local communities and small towns to bear the brunt of his cuts."
According to the OMB summary, Trump's Fiscal Year 2026 budget would cut over $4.5 billion from Title I and K-12 education programs, $4 billion from a program that provides heating assistance to low-income households, $2.4 billion from safe drinking water funding, $26 billion from rental assistance programs, $17 billion from the National Institutes of Health, $100 million from environmental justice programs, $1.3 billion from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and $4.6 billion from the Labor Department.
"President Trump is again betraying the millions of Americans who believed him when he promised to lower costs," Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, said in a statement. "This time, he's taking aim at anyone who attends a public school, relies on rental assistance to keep a roof over their heads, or accesses healthcare through Medicaid or Medicare."
"Instead of standing up for everyday Americans," said Carrk, "Trump is prioritizing his own wallet and the tax benefits of his wealthy donors—leaving local communities and small towns to bear the brunt of his cuts."
Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, noted that the cuts to social programs in the White House's budget proposal "are extreme by any standard, but they're extreme even by Trump's own standards," far exceeding even what he proposed during his first term.
"The cuts in this budget are especially egregious," said Kogan, "when you consider that Trump is also trying to push the largest Medicaid and food assistance cuts in American history through Congress over the next few months."
Meanwhile, the U.S. military would see a $113 billion budget increase compared to current levels if the Republican-controlled Congress were to enact Trump's proposal. The 13% increase would push the nation's annual military budget above $1 trillion, which analysts have described as the highest level since the Second World War.
"The Pentagon is bloated, wasteful, and has NEVER passed an audit," the progressive watchdog group Public Citizen wrote in response to Trump's budget. "What a disgrace."
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Judge Halts—For Now—Trump Bloodbath at US Consumer Bureau
"Cutting over 80% of CFPB staff is not only unwise, it's a direct attack on the financial security of millions of Americans," said the National Treasury Employees Union president.
Apr 18, 2025
A federal judge in Washington, D.C. delivered yet another blow to U.S. President Donald Trump's effort to gut the government, pausing plans to fire nearly 1,500 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees—which would leave around 200 CFPB staff.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said during a Friday hearing that she was "deeply concerned" about the plan and would be suspending the reduction in force (RIF) until she determines if it violates her previous order, according toThe Associated Press.
"I'm willing to resolve it quickly, but I'm not going to let this RIF go forward until I have," said the appointee of former President Barack Obama. She scheduled an April 28 hearing, which is set to include testimony from officials who worked on the plan.
CFPB is temporarily being led by Project 2025 architect and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought. The agency is a key target of billionaire Elon Musk, the de facto chief of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
In a sworn statement to the judge—submitted with the pseudonym Alex Doe due to fears of retaliation—someone on CFPB's reduction in force team said that "DOGE member Gavin Kliger managed the RIF. He kept the team up for 36 hours straight to ensure that the notices would go out yesterday (April 17). Gavin was screaming at people he did not believe were working fast enough to ensure they could go out on this compressed timeline, calling them incompetent."
Doe also shared key information about CFPB Chief Operating Officer Adam Martinez and Chief Legal Officer Mark Paoletta: "Team members raised the concern with Adam Martinez that there was a court order requiring that they do a particularized assessment, but they were told that all that mattered was the numbers. The direction to ignore the concern came from Mark Paoletta, who said that the numbers-based RIF should move forward, and that leadership would assume the risk."
"I understand that acting Director Russell Vought may have emailed Adam Martinez a similar direction," added Doe, whose declaration was filed by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which is fighting Trump's efforts to gut the CFPB.
As the AP reported Friday:
Martinez told the judge that he believes Kliger is an Office of Personnel Management employee detailed to the CFPB and doesn't work directly for DOGE.
Jackson said she will require Kliger to attend and possibly testify at the April 28 hearing. She said she wants to know why he was there "and what he was doing."
"We're not going to decide what happened until we know what happened," Jackson said.
The NTEU was among the groups that welcomed the judge's halt on mass firings at the agency, with union president Doreen Greenwald calling the bench order "a vindication for NTEU and its members, who wholeheartedly contend that the administration's abrupt and chaotic RIF process does not serve the American people and is a deep violation of the rights of CFPB employees."
"Cutting over 80% of CFPB staff is not only unwise, it's a direct attack on the financial security of millions of Americans," Greenwald asserted. "We will continue to advocate on behalf of the American people and NTEU members in court in response to President Trump's war on civil servants and we aim to demonstrate that these frenzied, thoughtless attempts to shutter agencies that have done nothing but faithfully serve the American people are a detriment to the public good."
Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center, said in a statement that "we are gratified that Judge Jackson is not going to tolerate violation of her orders."
"The courts are the last line of defense against this administration's repeated efforts to dismantle the CFPB and clear the way for unscrupulous companies to violate the law and exploit servicemembers, veterans, and their families," Saunders stressed.
"The administration's claim that the CFPB is refocusing its priorities is a sham—the firings are an effort to completely dismantle the CFPB and to violate Congress' mandate to create a consumer watchdog and fix the gaps that led to the devastating 2007 financial crisis," she added.
"The administration's claim that the CFPB is refocusing its priorities is a sham—the firings are an effort to completely dismantle the CFPB."
Wendy Liu, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, declared that "the Trump administration's attempt to gut the CFPB must be stopped. The court's order halting the administration's attempt at mass layoffs is critical to ensuring that the agency can continue to exist and fulfill its statutorily mandated functions."
Mike Pierce, a former CFPB official who now leads the nonprofit Student Borrower Protection Center, said that "today, the courts stood between Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their illegal scheme to turn the CFPB into a hollow shell—because a watchdog that can't bark is perfect for a billionaire who can't make an honest buck."
"And let's be blunt: Musk is trying to illegally fire the federal employees who would oversee his Twitter/X payments business and already oversee Tesla's auto lending giant—and who knows what other ventures," he continued. "This chaotic, all-night RIF attempt wasn't just incompetent and unlawful, it was a confession."
"Musk knows the CFPB would crack down on his financial schemes, so he's rushing to gut the agency first," Pierce warned. "The courts saw through this today, but Trump and Musk will keep trying. They have made it their mission to encourage corporate financial fraud, no matter how many laws they break in the process. It's obvious why."
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'Victory for Scammers' as Trump Fires 90% of Consumer Protection Agency Staff
"This is another assault on consumers and our democracy by Trump's lawless administration," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren. "We will fight back with everything we've got."
Apr 18, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday dealt what advocates fear could be a fatal blow to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by moving to fire 90% of its workforce, gutting an agency that has returned tens of billions of dollars to Americans defrauded by corporate abusers.
With no advance notice, roughly 1,500 CFPB employees received news Thursday afternoon that they're being fired, a major step toward billionaire Trump lieutenant Elon Musk's stated goal of deleting the bureau. The mass terminations, if upheld, would leave the CFPB with a "skeleton crew" of around 200 staffers.
"This is another assault on consumers and our democracy by Trump's lawless administration," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a key driving force behind the creation of the CFPB in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. "We will fight back with everything we've got."
The so-called reduction-in-force (RIF) notices came days after a federal court issued an order requiring the CFPB—currently headed by far-right Project 2025 architect Russell Vought—to conduct a "particularized assessment" for employees it wants to terminate.
"Today's RIF notice is not just an attack on the hardworking professionals who serve as our financial advocates, it is an assault on the financial prosperity of the American people."
The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents CFPB staffers, said Thursday that it appears likely the bureau's leadership did not comply with the court order.
"Today's RIF notice is not just an attack on the hardworking professionals who serve as our financial advocates, it is an assault on the financial prosperity of the American people," said NTEU president Doreen Greenwald. "Make no mistake, the impacts of having less supervision of financial institutions will signal economic insecurity for many across this nation—and that’s exactly what this administration wants."
In a court filing on Thursday, NTEU argued it is "unfathomable that cutting the bureau's staff by 90% in just 24 hours, with no notice
to people to prepare for that elimination, would not 'interfere with the performance' of its statutory duties, to say nothing of the implausibility of the defendants having made a 'particularized assessment' of each employee's role in the three-and-a-half business days since the court of appeals imposed that requirement."
A federal court hearing on the RIF, which one journalist called "a victory for scammers," is scheduled for 11:00 ET on Friday.
The American Prospect's David Dayen noted Thursday that "there are at least 87 legal responsibilities under the purview of CFPB in the U.S. code, 13 of which require specific offices."
"The RIF leaves around 200 employees in place to carry out those 87 responsibilities, which stretches credulity," Dayen wrote.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at Demand Progress Education Fund, said in a statement Thursday that the Trump administration is "systematically gutting all efforts to protect service members, and all Americans, from fraud and scams while simultaneously letting Wall Street, Big Banks, and Big Tech off the hook."
"If the administration actually cared about them," said Peterson-Cassin, "they wouldn't have fired most of the people responsible for protecting them."
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