White House targets week of March 30 for budget release

Aidan Quigley and Paul M. Krawzak, CQ-Roll Call on Mar 4, 2026

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WASHINGTON — The White House tentatively aims to release President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal the week of March 30, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the plan.

That timing would put budget delivery some eight weeks after the statutory due date of the first Monday in February, though presidential budgets often miss that deadline.

Office of Management and Budget staff couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Few details of the spending plan have been disclosed, beyond Trump’s announcement that he would ask for $1.5 trillion for defense, a roughly 50% increase from this year’s level.

Administration officials are still working on finalizing how much of that will be requested as part of the discretionary budget, and if they will ask for additional spending through a second filibuster-proof reconciliation bill on top of that. But Republicans have sent mixed signals on whether another reconciliation bill is possible.

One proposal under consideration would feature $1.1 trillion in discretionary defense spending, with the balance of $400 billion sought through reconciliation, though the breakdown is subject to change, according to sources with knowledge of the plans.

Getting some of the money through reconciliation would be necessary because Democrats would be very unlikely to support a record $1.5 trillion defense request in the Senate, where it takes 60 votes to advance most legislation, unless commensurate increases are provided for nondefense programs. It only takes a simple majority to advance a reconciliation bill in the Senate.

A submission during the last days of March or first days of April would be much earlier than last year, when a discretionary spending request was issued on May 2, followed by fuller details later in the spring.

The OMB issued the budget appendix, providing detailed information for appropriators, on May 30. And it provided more detail on its defense request on June 6.

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