Last week, President Trump released a budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 that proposes deep cuts for essential services that allow older adults and people with disabilities to remain safely at home and in their communities. Overall, the budget guts and eliminates programs that serve the well-being of people by $163 billion, a historic amount, while increasing military spending and shifting more costs to states.
The proposed cuts include nearly $27 billion in cuts to federal rental assistance, the elimination of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps low-income families heat and cool their homes, and drastic cuts to CDC and NIH. The blueprint would eliminate and cut programs to address housing discrimination, combat violence against women, help refugees, promote health equity, and protect civil rights, which will harm older adults and their families in all communities.
The budget effectively reduces funding for Social Security by not keeping up with increased costs and does nothing to reverse the significant staff cuts at the Social Security Administration, which are harming the millions of older adults and people with disabilities who depend on Social Security for their basic needs.
While this “skinny budget” is only a proposal, we see the writing on the wall. Aging services only just received funding for this fiscal year (FY 2025), and programs that support older adults to age in their communities are on the chopping block for 2026. The FY 26 skinny budget proposal, when considered in tandem with the Republican proposals to slash $880 billion from Medicaid, demonstrates a cruel pattern of taking basic needs services and programs away from older adults and people with disabilities.
