Congressional appropriators are one step closer to reaching a comprehensive spending deal for the rest of the fiscal year before a stopgap spending bill expires at the end of the month.

Members of the House and Senate appropriations committees released a four-bill “minibus” of fiscal 2026 spending bills on Tuesday.

Congress is roughly halfway to passing a spending plan for the rest of FY 2026. The current continuing resolution expires on Jan. 30.

The latest “minibus” covers annual appropriations for the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, as well as some smaller related agencies.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in a statement that the spending package delivers “results without waste.”

“At a time when many believed completing the FY26 process was out of reach, we’ve shown that challenges are opportunities. It’s time to get it across the finish line,” Cole said.

Here are a few highlights from the spending package:

3.8% pay raise for air traffic controllers

The spending deal would give the Federal Aviation Administration a $1.58 billion budget for fiscal 2026, as well as funding to hire 2,500 new air traffic controllers

The FAA is about 3,500 air traffic controllers short of its staffing goals. Many current air traffic controllers are working six days a week, including mandatory overtime.

As part of this budget plan, the FAA would receive $140 million to implement a 3.8% pay raise for air traffic controllers, as well as supervisors and managers who oversee air traffic.

The Trump administration approved a 3.8% pay raise for federal law enforcement personnel, which went into effect at the start of January. Air traffic controllers were not on the Office of Personnel Management’s list of positions receiving a higher pay raise.

The spending bill states that the 3.8% pay raise “shall be implemented for all such employees only to the extent that the administrator determines, in his sole discretion, that improvements in workforce scheduling, staffing utilization, or other operational efficiencies are achieved that contribute to addressing workforce shortfalls and enhancing aviation safety.”

If the FAA administrator determines these conditions, the pay raise would retroactively go into effect for the first pay period in January 2026.

Spending cuts for a smaller federal workforce

Republican appropriators applauded overall spending cuts in the spending bill that funds the Transportation Department, HUD and related agencies.

GOP lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee wrote that the spending deal “codified DOGE recommendations to reduce the federal bureaucracy” of Transportation, HUD and related agencies by 29%.

More specifically, GOP lawmakers said the spending package reflects a 24% reduction in HUD staffing achieved partially through layoffs last year.

Lawmakers said a smaller HUD workforce will save $348 million in salaries and related expenses.

Republican appropriators said the spending deal reflects the Transportation Department “right-sizing” its workforce through a 5% staffing reduction, “all without compromising transportation safety.”

President Donald Trump told reporters at a White House press briefing on Monday that his administration “slashed tremendous numbers of people off the federal payroll” during his first year in office.

OPM data shows over 300,000 federal employees left government last year. That’s about a net loss of 220,000 employees, when accounting for new hires.

Trump said downsizing the federal workforce was necessary, because “they had 10 people for every job,” and that terminated federal employees have moved on to higher-paying jobs in the private sector.

“I don’t feel badly, because they’re getting private sector jobs, and they’re getting sometimes twice as much money, three times as much money,” Trump said. “They’re getting factory jobs, they’re getting much better jobs and much higher pay.”

Higher HHS spending, proposed cuts rejected

The spending bill gives the Department of Health and Human Services $116.8 billion in discretionary spending — a $210 million increase in discretionary spending. By contrast, the Trump administration proposed a nearly 20% cut to HHS discretionary spending this year.

The congressional spending deal rejects the administration’s calls for deep cuts within HHS. The administration sought a 50% spending cut for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Instead, the compromise reached by lawmakers essentially keeps CDC funded at current levels, and includes funding increases for some of its pandemic preparedness programs.

The spending package would give $7.4 billion to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) a $65 million increase over current funding levels.

The bigger budget reflects increased spending to address a rise in opioid overdoses, especially from fentanyl, as well as boosts to substance abuse disorder prevention and mental health services.

Lawmakers rejected a 15% cut to SAMHSA funding proposed by the Trump administration. The spending deal also rejects the administration’s plan to reorganize SAMHSA into the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), a new office envisioned by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Democrats on the appropriations committees said the spending deal ensures SAMHSA remains its “own, independent agency to help ensure substance use and mental health remain a priority at HHS” and “includes new guardrails to ensure SAMHSA funds are allocated as intended.”

NPR reported last week that HHS briefly terminated $2 billion in addiction and mental health grants, but quickly walked back those cuts.

Education Department budget remains intact

Lawmakers are largely rejecting the administration’s proposal to dismantle the Education Department, and move many of its functions to other federal agencies.

The spending bill gives the department $79 billion in discretionary spending — a roughly flat budget compared to current spending levels.

The Trump administration proposed cutting the Education Department by $12 billion, or about 15% of its current discretionary budget.

The Education Department has already signed six interagency agreements to transfer some of its programs and employees to HHS and the departments of Labor, Interior and State.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon told employees last November that the department is soft-launching plans to reassign its work to other parts of the federal government, before calling on Congress to permanently shutter the agency.

Senate Appropriations Committee Vice President Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement that “Congress will not abolish the Department of Education, and the people’s representatives will have the final say on how taxpayer dollars get spent.”

Budget boost for Social Security

The Social Security Administration would see a higher budget under this spending plan.

Lawmakers propose giving SSA $15 billion for its administrative budget in fiscal 2026 — a $554 million increase compared to current spending levels.

Lawmakers from both parties agreed that the funding will help the agency improve customer service for the public. Democratic appropriators urged SSA to use these increased funds to resume hiring.

SSA currently has about 50,000 employees in total, according to the latest data from the Office of Personnel Management. The agency lost more than 7,000 employees through voluntary incentives last year. It also relocated many of its employees from its headquarters and regional offices to field offices.

SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano told staff at an all-hands meeting last week that the agency is continuing to hire, according to several employees in attendance. Those employees, however, said the agency still faces a hiring freeze.

Labor Dept. federal contractor watchdog spared from elimination

The spending bill provides $13.7 billion in discretionary spending to the Labor Department — a slight increase compared to its current $13.5 billion discretionary budget.

The department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs would receive a $101 million budget, about a 9% cut to current spending levels. OFCCP ensures federal contractors aren’t discriminating against their employees.

OFCCP, however, would remain largely intact, after the Trump administration proposed major staffing cuts. An earlier funding proposal from House Republicans also proposed fully eliminating OFCCP.

The agency sent layoff notices to 90% of its staff, but rescinded those layoffs last August. Instead of being reinstated to their jobs at OFCCP, the agency said impacted employees would be “reassigned to a new position” at the Labor Department.

Small agencies marked for closure stay open

The spending bill also includes funding for small, independent agencies marked for elimination by an executive order last year.

Lawmakers propose giving the Institute of Museum and Library Services a $292 million budget — a $3 million cut compared to current spending levels.  The spending bill also proposes $3 million in funding for the Interagency Council on Homelessness.

President Trump signed an executive order last March, eliminating these agencies and five others “to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”

A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered a permanent injunction last November, putting the Trump administration’s plans to shutter these small agencies on hold.

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said in a statement that the funding package “continues Congress’s forceful rejection of extreme cuts to federal programs proposed by the Trump administration.”

“Where the White House attempted to eliminate entire programs, we chose to increase their funding. Where the administration proposed slashing resources, we chose to sustain funding at current levels,” DeLauro said.

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Congressional appropriators are seeking less aggressive budget cuts for the IRS than what the Trump administration has proposed.

Members of the House and Senate appropriations committees, in the latest package of spending bills for fiscal 2026, are also renewing efforts to shrink federal office space.

Funding for the State Department remains relatively unchanged, despite a massive reorganization carried out last year.

Meanwhile, lawmakers want agencies to use artificial intelligence tools to speed up the delivery of public-facing benefits and services.

Here are a few highlights from the FY 2026 spending bills on Financial Services and General Government, as well as National Security and the State Department.

Less dramatic cuts for the IRS

The spending package still includes budget cuts for the IRS, but less severe cuts than what the Trump administration and House Republicans proposed.

The minibus would give the IRS an $11.2 billion budget for the rest of fiscal 2026 — a $1.1 billion, or nearly 9% cut from current spending levels. This would be the fourth consecutive year the IRS has seen spending cuts or a flat budget.

Republican appropriators said the spending package “restrains the IRS,” while investing more funds in public-facing taxpayer services.

IRS would spend $3 billion on taxpayer services — about $256 million above current spending levels. But its enforcement budget would shrink to $5 billion — about a $439 million cut compared to current levels.

The Trump administration proposed a $9.8 billion annual budget for the agency — more than a 20% spending cut from current spending levels.

In recent years, the IRS has tapped into a multi-billion-dollar modernization fund from the Inflation Reduction Act to address shrinking annual appropriations. Moving around these funds, however, leaves the IRS with less funding to address long-standing problems with its outdated IT systems.

Democrats on the appropriations committee said the spending deal rejects “poison pill” provisions from earlier proposals. That includes a provision that would block the IRS from creating its own free tax filing software.

The IRS officially shut down Direct File, the agency’s free online tax filing platform that ran for two years, and is exploring alternatives operated by tax preparation companies. The spending bill grants the IRS authority to make new hires more quickly to help address backlogged tax returns.

Under this spending deal, the Small Business Administration would also receive a $1.25 billion budget under this spending deal, rejecting the Trump administration’s plan to cut its funding by over 40%.

GSA funding to offload underutilized office space

Lawmakers are calling on the General Services Administration to accelerate its plans to offload underutilized federal office space. The spending deal, however, falls short of what GSA officials have said is necessary to address a multi-billion-dollar maintenance backlog.

The spending bill allows GSA to spend $9.7 billion from the Federal Buildings Fund. That fund includes rent payments GSA collects from agencies working out of GSA-owned facilities. Included in those funds, GSA receives $166 million in funding for new federal construction projects, and $934 million for federal building repairs.

In a joint explanatory statement, appropriators wrote that they are concerned that deferred maintenance costs for federal real estate are “rising at an unsustainable rate.”

The spending deal would require GSA to conduct a study examining the “administrative and regulatory burdens” GSA faces in the real estate disposal process, and to brief the appropriations committees on its findings.

GSA currently has about $24 billion in deferred maintenance projects. Ed Forst, GSA’s newly confirmed administrator, recently told a Senate panel that about $6 billion is “urgently needed” within the next year or two to address the deferred maintenance backlog. The maintenance backlog, he added, is “likely underestimated,” and will only grow if left unaddressed.

The Public Buildings Reform Board, which advises GSA on underutilized federal properties it should sell or offload, recently told a House subcommittee that GSA will need about $50 billion to address a backlog of deferred maintenance and repairs in federal buildings.

GSA currently receives about $600 million annually to address those needs. Given those spending levels, the board estimates GSA’s portfolio would have to shrink by about 80% to keep up with its maintenance backlog.

The spending deal would give $3.6 million to the Public Buildings Reform Board. The board is set to disband by the end of this year. Members of the board, however, say their work is far from finished, and have asked Congress to consider reauthorizing the board.

The spending bill also supports President Donald Trump’s executive order designating classical architectural styles as the preferred style for new construction projects.

AI tools to deliver public-facing services

The spending bill also focused on GSA’s government IT portfolio, and directs GSA to help deliver benefits and services to the public more quickly through AI tools.

The spending bill awards $1.4 million to GSA’s Office of Technology Policy to make federal websites more accessible for people with disabilities, as required by Section 508 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act.

“As the nation’s population ages, there will be more people with disabilities who rely on accessibility tools to access government resources. This underscores the importance of making Federal websites, apps, kiosks, and other technology accessible in the coming decades,” the joint explanatory statement states.

More than half of all federal websites have at least one accessibility issue, according to data collected in 2024 by GSA and the Office of Management and Budget.

The spending package also directs GSA to help agencies improve their public-facing benefits and services through AI tools. The spending deal, however, doesn’t put any funding behind this goal.

“Congress recognizes the importance of improving customer satisfaction for constituents seeking information about benefits and government resources,” appropriators wrote in their joint explanatory statement. “The agreement encourages the GSA to work with federal agencies to develop improved customer experiences when interfacing with their government on its progress toward issuing this guidance.”

State Department funding intact, spares independent agencies from elimination 

Lawmakers are proposing modest budget cuts for the State Department, despite going through its largest reorganization in decades.

The minibus gives the State Department a $9.7 billion operating budget, an essentially flat budget compared to the department’s current $9.8 billion operations budget.

The minibus requires the State Department to give Congress quarterly updates on staffing levels, hiring and attrition for its civil service and Foreign Service ranks. The State Department laid off nearly 1,350 employees last summer. It also eliminated or consolidated hundreds of offices and programs.

The bill also rejects the Trump administration’s deep cuts planned for some independent agencies — including the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which includes Voice of America. But it doesn’t address the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development last year. All USAID programs spared from elimination have been folded into the State Department.

Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said the spending package reflects “tough negotiations under extremely challenging circumstances,” but is a “significantly better outcome than another yearlong continuing resolution.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the “appropriations process continues to move forward and advance priorities of the American people.”

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said the minibus rejects “extreme cuts to humanitarian aid programs.”

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said that with this spending package, lawmakers “are advancing President Trump’s vision of a golden age defined by security, responsibility, and growth.”

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Congressional appropriators are rejecting some of the most severe agency budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration, and are looking to put additional guardrails on unilateral agency reorganizations that could further shrink the federal workforce.

A “minibus” of three spending bills for fiscal 2026, released by the House and Senate appropriations committees on Monday, prohibits covered agencies from using congressional funds to carry out most agency reorganization activities until they provide advanced notice to appropriators. Those activities include unilaterally reprogramming funds to create or eliminate programs, projects or activities, relocate any office or employees, or cut more than 5% of the employees or funding that support a program, project or activity.

It also prohibits agencies from carrying out these reorganizations using “general savings,” including savings from a reduction in personnel, “which would result in a change in existing programs, projects, or activities as approved by Congress.”

This language applies to a wide swath of agencies — including the departments of Justice, Interior, Commerce and Energy, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and NASA.

The spending package also includes language ensuring that the National Weather Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service and the EPA maintain staffing levels that allow them to carry out their statutory obligations.

Democrats on the appropriations committees said the spending deal reasserts Congress’s power of the purse, and seeks to rein in the Trump administration’s repurposing of agency budgets and unilateral agency reorganizations.

The Government Accountability Office found last year that several agencies unlawfully withheld congressional appropriations last year through a process called impoundment. GAO is still reviewing dozens of cases of potential impoundment.

Republican appropriators said the spending deal reflects “current fiscal constraints,” and trims the budgets of the Interior Department, EPA and the Forest Service to reflect recent staffing cuts.

The Trump administration sought to lay off about 4,000 federal employees during the recent government shutdown. Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said last October that layoffs at these agencies were justified because lawmakers allowed funds for these programs to expire, indicating they were no longer congressional priorities.

A stopgap spending bill, set to expire on Jan. 30, has put a hold on layoffs at some agencies. The Interior Department was poised to eliminate more than 2,000 positions.

Steep cuts at other agencies, however, have already gone into effect. A recent inspector general report found that the Energy Department lost about 20% of its employees in fiscal 2025 through a combination of voluntary separation incentives, retirements and “other human resource actions.”

The National Park Service and the EPA have also lost about 25% of their workforce under the Trump administration.

The minibus spending package generally seeks modest spending reductions for covered agencies, but departs from the Trump administration’s calls for major budget cuts.  It would cut the EPA’s budget by about 4% in fiscal 2026 — a far cry from the 55% budget cut the Trump administration proposed.

Lawmakers are also proposing a nearly 4% budget cut for the National Science Foundation, rejecting the Trump administration’s request to cut NSF’s budget by about 57% in FY 2026.

The minibus offers a $24.43 billion budget for NASA, a nearly 2% decrease from current spending levels. But the package rejects most of the Trump administration’s proposals to cut NASA’s science budget by nearly half and terminate 55 operating and planned missions.

Lawmakers are seeking a $160 million budget increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Science — about a 2% boost from current spending levels, rejecting the Trump administration’s calls to cut more than $1 billion from its current budget. DOE’s Office of Science supports research being conducted by 22,000 researchers at 17 national labs and over 300 universities.

Lawmakers are proposing a $3.27 billion budget for the National Park Service, about a 2% overall budget decrease. The spending plan includes flat funding for National Park Service operations. The Trump administration proposed cutting the NPS operating budget by nearly $1 billion.

The National Parks Conservation Association said in a statement that the bill includes key provisions “seeking to retain and rehire urgently needed Park Service staff, which would help restore the agency’s capacity to protect our parks, as well as require congressional notification of any plans for future mass firings.”

NPCA President and CEO Theresa Pierno said that the association had been “sounding the alarm on the need for park funding and staffing for months, and Congress listened.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement that Democrats, as part of these negotiations, “defeated heartless cuts,” and are reasserting congressional control of how agencies spend appropriated funds.

Murray said language in the minibus bill prevents President Donald Trump and cabinet secretaries from “unilaterally” deciding how to spend taxpayer dollars. A yearlong continuing resolution for fiscal 2025, she added, lacked these detailed funding directives for hundreds of programs, and “turned over decision-making power to the executive branch to fill in the gaps itself.”

“Importantly, passing these bills will help ensure that Congress, not President Trump and Russ Vought, decides how taxpayer dollars are spent — by once again providing hundreds of detailed spending directives and reasserting congressional control over these incredibly important spending decisions,” Murray said.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), ranking member of the committee’s subcommittee on commerce, justice, science and related agencies, said the spending package rejects the Trump administration’s deep cuts to scientific agencies, including NASA Goddard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. All three agencies are based in Maryland.

“Our bill makes clear that Congress, on a bipartisan basis, will not accept this administration’s reckless, harmful cuts,” Van Hollen said in a statement.

Van Hollen said the bill “is not perfect,” but requires the Trump administration to provide more details on plans to relocate the FBI’s headquarters to the Reagan Building in downtown Washington, D.C., before it can tap into funds Congress had set aside for the project.

Before it taps into those funds, the FBI must give congressional appropriators an architectural and engineering plan for the new headquarters building.

“This is an important step to reassert Congress’s oversight role in the relocation of the FBI headquarters and to ensure the new headquarters meets the mission and security needs of the FBI,” Van Hollen said.

Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) called the minibus a “fiscally responsible package that restrains spending while providing essential federal investments” in water infrastructure, energy and national security, and scientific research.

“The package supports our law enforcement and provides funding for national weather forecasting and oceans and fisheries science to save lives and livelihoods,” she said. “It provides investments in our public lands and upholds our commitments to tribal communities.”

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said the bipartisan spending package “reflects steady progress toward completing FY26 funding responsibly.”

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said the spending package “reasserts Congress’s power of the purse.”

“Rather than another short-sighted stop-gap measure that affords the Trump Administration broader discretion, this full-year funding package restrains the White House through precise, legally binding spending requirements,” DeLauro said.

Congress has already passed FY 2026 spending bills that cover the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Veterans Affairs, military construction and the legislative branch.

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