Steve Nuzum looks at the broad outlines of the Trump budget and education.
The Trump Administration’s Discretionary Budget Request (sometimes called a “skinny budget”) dropped May 2, and, like many of the administration’s actions, it calls into question the thin premise of then-candiate Trump’s claim during the lead-up to the 2024 election that he had no connection to Project 2025.
The budget, essentially a non-binding wishlist for Congress, proposes $163 billion in cuts to funding for a variety of government programs. (Russel Vought, a self-identified “Christian nationalist” who wrote a piece defending “Christian nationalism” for Newsweek in 2021, and of the masterminds of Project 2025, heads the Administration’s Office of Management and Budget. Vought wrote the cover letter on the budget itself.)
It slashes the total federal education budget by around 15%, according to NPR (while, according to an overview provided by the White House, increasing military spending by about 13%.)
The targets for cuts often align closely with the “blueprint” created by the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership, a list of goals for the “next conservative presidential administration” from the far-right Heritage Foundation and a list of contributors and sponsors including Moms for Liberty, the “anti-LGBT hate group” Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), and various pro-voucher and pro-censorship nonprofits and “think tanks” (as well as significant number of individuals who served in Trump’s first administration and/ or would go on to serve in his current administration).