News from the Hill: April 24, 2026

At the start of April, the administration released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Budget Request to Congress. The nonbinding annual document provides a blueprint to lawmakers on administration priorities and traditionally starts the annual appropriations process. This year though, the House and Senate were both well on their way to crafting the FY 2027 spending bills before the administration even provided its requested budget.

The Trump administration has systematically called on Congress to provide deep funding cuts and consolidation for medical research and public health programs. Congress has routinely resisted these proposals (including for FY 2026) and opted to maintain the status quo, even providing modest increases for research while level-funding for public health. The FY 2027 request repeats these calls, but in a notably toned-down fashion with smaller cuts for NIH and more modest reorganization proposals.

The FY 2027 budget request to Congress includes:

• $111.1 billion in discretionary funding for HHS, a proposed decrease of roughly $15.8 billion from FY 2026.
  • $7.23 billion in total funding for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a proposed increase of $232 million over FY 2026, comprised of $3.3 billion in discretionary funding (a proposed decrease of $48 million) and $3.92 billion in user fees (a proposed increase of $280 million).
  • $9.14 billion for the Indian Health Service (IHS), a proposed increase of $958 million over FY 2026.
  • $5.2 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), not including programs moved to AHA, a proposed reduction of $484 million over FY 2026.
  • $41.47 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a proposed decrease of $4.8 billion over FY 2026.
    • Capping indirect costs rates at 15%.
    • The CTSA program only receives a 7.5% proposed cut, less that the overall 12.5% cut proposed for NIH.
  • $945 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a proposed decrease of $555 million from FY 2026.
  • $14.67 billion for Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), a proposed reduction of $4.98 billion from FY 2026. While AHA was not created by FY 2026, the budget request numbers appear derived from taking the funding lines that would normally exist (SAMHSA, HRSA, AHRQ, parts of CDC), and comparing them to their traditional function and funding from the prior year.
• $76.5 billion in discretionary funding for Ed, a proposed decrease of $2.3 billion from FY 2026.

Lawmakers seem poised, once again, to maintain federal agencies and possibly provide funding increases through the FY 2027 process. Grassroots advocacy remains critical though to educate Senators and Representatives about ongoing opportunities and challenges (such as the problems with multi-year funding) to justify additional research funding. Congress will need to make tough spending decisions and they are making key decisions now, ahead of campaign season for the November elections.

Written by: Dane Christiansen and Kira Flaherty, Washington Representatives (the Health and Medicine Counsel)