President Donald Trump appears headed for a major fight with Republican congressmen over his plan for dramatic cuts to federal spending, The Hill reported on Monday.
Although many GOP lawmakers agree with Trump's goal of getting rid of the tremendous waste in government spending he claimed there was during the campaign, some Republicans are already balking about some of the proposed targets for cuts.
The administration wants to slash $10.5 trillion in federal spending over the next decade, which would drastically reduce the size of government, the New York Post reports.
There is not much time to reach some sort of deal, as the initial budget proposal is expected to reach Congress within 45 days.
Reportedly on the chopping block is funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the privatization of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
This highlights one of the main disagreements among Republicans. While the conservative wing is likely to support those plans, some GOP members are reluctant to make the cuts in areas of discretionary spending, saying this is under control and only makes up a third of the budget.
"The part of the budget that is creating the debt is the entitlement part of the budget," Sen. Lamar Alexander, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chairman, told The Hill.
But that line of thinking runs counter to Trump's campaign promise not to make cuts to Medicare or Social Security, two of the main sources of entitlement spending.
Another area of disagreement is projects which are important to specific parts of the country and whose representatives from there, including the Republican ones, fight against cuts to those programs.
One example is the elimination of the essential air service program, which subsidizes rural airports in sparsely populated communities.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowki was adamant that she would do all she could to save the program. "It would basically shut down rural Alaska… This is not a nice to have, it's a must have," she said, as there are no highways in the state.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.