Former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra decried the Trump administration’s “skinny budget” request unveiled on Friday, lambasting it as not a budget proposal but a “demolition plan.”
In the proposal, President Trump called for cutting $33.3 billion or 26.2 percent of HHS’s discretionary funding. These requested cuts included a $3.6 billion reduction in discretionary funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $18 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and $674 million for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Program Management.
“This isn’t a budget proposal – it’s a demolition plan. Slashing $33 billion in NIH funding and cratering public health research is an assault on our nation’s ability to prepare for and respond to disease, medical innovation and everyday care that millions of Americans rely on,” Becerra wrote on the social media platform X.
Last month, he launched his campaign for California governor, citing his tenure as HHS secretary as well as his record of taking on Trump when he was California attorney general.
The Oval Office asked for several programs’ funding to be cut as they were deemed to promote “DEI” and “radical gender ideology.”
The only health program that gains discretionary funding in the proposal is HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, for which the budget provides $500 million.
In fiscal year 2025, the last budget under the Biden administration, HHS ultimately received $127 billion in discretionary funding. The Biden White House had requested s $130.7 billion in discretionary budget authority.
The Trump administration proposal would give HHS $93.8 billion in discretionary funding.
Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) was among the Republicans who pushed back on the asks in the budget, citing the cuts proposed to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, operated under HHS, as among requests she took issue with along with “those that support biomedical research.”
