Happy Valentine's Day! The official White House account on X posted a special message for the day, with images of President Donald Trump and border czar Thomas Homan on a pink background decorated with hearts. Above them was this poem: "Roses are red, violets are blue. Come here illegally, and we'll deport you."
We'll be back in your inbox on Tuesday. Until then, here's what is happening.
House Republican Budget Blueprint Clears First Big Hurdle
The House Budget Committee voted Thursday night to advance a Republican budget blueprint needed to enact much of President Donald Trump's border, energy and tax agenda in one "big, beautiful bill."
The committee vote, 21-16 along party lines, came after hours of intense debate at the markup session.
The package allows the House Ways and Means Committee to come up with tax plans that would increase deficits by $4.5 trillion over a decade, providing room for an extension of expiring 2017 tax cuts. Under an agreement struck by House leaders and fiscal conservatives, the size of the tax cuts and increased deficit will be linked to the level of spending cuts achieved by other committees as part of the plan. House Freedom Caucus members had pressed for at least $2 trillion in spending cuts, and if spending cuts fall below that level or exceed it, the $4.5 trillion allotted for tax cuts would be adjusted by an equal amount.
The resolution also would raise the federal borrowing limit by $4 trillion.
A win for House GOP leaders: After weeks of uncertainty, House Republican leaders celebrated clearing "a critical hurdle" toward delivering on Trump's priorities. Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington said in a statement that the resolution "is a blueprint to right-size the bloated federal bureaucracy, rein-in the reckless spending that spurred record inflation, and roll back the barrage of burdensome regulations that are crushing our small businesses."
He also called it the "the only comprehensive deal Congress has on the table to get the job done" - but the Senate does have a less comprehensive plan of its own, a $345 billion reconciliation blueprint that includes energy and defense policies but would leave tax cuts for a second bill later in the year. The Senate could consider that resolution as soon as next week. Both chambers have to adopt the same budget framework, and Republicans have been divided over whether it would be better to pursue one reconciliation bill or two as they look to pass their plan on a partisan basis that avoids the threat of a Senate filibuster.
More hurdles ahead: The House plan could still face significant challenges, as some conservatives may balk at voting to raise the debt limit and moderates are likely to have concerns about the spending reductions being proposed, including cuts to Medicaid and food stamps.
"The emerging fault lines are many: GOP members in high-tax blue states are concerned that the plan doesn't leave enough room to expand the state and local tax deduction. And Senate Republicans and some House hard-liners aren't ready to give up on a competing two-bill plan," Politico's Meredith Lee Hill reports. "But Johnson's most immediate problem comes from swing-district Republicans who believe that the steep spending cuts Johnson wants across Medicaid, food assistance and other safety-net programs for low-income Americans could cost them their seats - and Johnson his razor-thin GOP majority."
Democrats decry a 'reverse Robin Hood' plan: Democrats overwhelmingly oppose the GOP plan, arguing that it recklessly slashes programs that help the middle class and low-income families in order to deliver tax cuts for the wealthy.
"This budget rips healthcare away from millions while handing out $4.5 trillion in tax breaks, the overwhelming majority of which go to billionaires and wealthy corporations," said Rep. Brendan F. Boyle, the top Democrat on the budget panel. "It slashes at least $230 billion from food assistance programs, at a time when grocery prices remain at record highs. And it proposes, and I hope every American listens to this, it proposes at least $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act."
Boyle noted that about 20 million Americans rely on the Affordable Care Act and more than 72 million people rely on Medicaid.
He also charged Republicans with hypocrisy on the national debt. "I can't tell you how many times over my adult life, I have heard any time there's a Democrat in the White House my friends on the other side of the aisle bemoaning the size of the national debt," he said. "Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. Where's their debt reduction plan? It's not here."
The bottom line: House Republicans took a big step, but they have massive challenges ahead of them and differences to iron out with their Senate counterparts.
Trump Administration Powers Up Its Purge of Federal Workers
The Trump administration has ramped up its unprecedented mass firings of federal workers, focusing on employees who have been at their jobs for less than a year, or less than two years in some cases.
The Office of Personnel Management reportedly directed agencies Thursday to lay off most of the roughly 200,000 probationary workers. The firings come after more than 77,000 federal employees accepted a Trump administration offer to resign with pay through September.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal worker union, condemned the mass layoffs. "These firings are not about poor performance - there is no evidence these employees were anything but dedicated public servants," union president Everett Kelley said in a statement. "They are about power. They are about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence."
Kelley added that the administration is discarding the talented public servants needed to make agencies work effectively in the years ahead.
While the full scope of the job cuts is not yet clear, some details are known:
* The Department of Veterans Affairs said it had dismissed more than 1,000 probationary employees. The department said it has more than 43,000 probationary employees, the vast majority of whom are exempt from the layoffs because they serve in "mission-critical positions" or are covered under a collective bargaining agreement. Employees who accepted the buyout offer were also exempt.
The department estimated that the firings of probationary workers will save more than $98 million a year and said that money would be used for "health care, benefits and services for VA beneficiaries." The VA's budget for fiscal 2023 was just over $300 billion, including some $170 billion in mandatory spending on disability payments and other benefits.
* Nearly 1,300 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or about one-tenth of the agency's staff, are losing their jobs. An spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services told the Associated Press that the cuts follow the administration's guidance and are part of the broader effort to streamline the government. "This is to ensure that HHS better serves the American people at the highest and most efficient standard," he said. Critics warn, however, that the layoffs could set back public health efforts and disease research.
* About 1,000 workers at the Energy Department were told they'd be out of their jobs, including more than 300 workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration, The New York Times reports. CNN says that about 3,400 Forest Service employees and 2,000 Energy Department staffers were dismissed on Thursday, according to the national president of the National Federation of Federal Employees.
* The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to slash thousands of jobs as soon as next week, the Times reports. "The I.R.S. has dramatically grown its work force in recent years, reaching roughly 100,000 employees, after the Biden administration pushed to revitalize the beleaguered agency," write Andrew Duehren and Alan Rappeport. "Republicans have long attacked the additional I.R.S. personnel as villains who harass middle-class taxpayers, with President Trump targeting the agency for an extended hiring freeze and pushing to repurpose some of its agents to help with immigration enforcement."
The Office of Personnel Management and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also saw many employees dismissed, and other agencies, including the General Services Administration, the Small Business Administration and the Education Department, had already begun layoffs of their own.
What Americans Really Think About Government Spending
President Trump's aggressive effort to reduce federal spending and employment is driven in part by a long-standing sense among many conservatives that the government and its budget are far too large. While millions of Americans clearly share that general sensibility, opinions about how much the government should spend on specific programs and issues show somewhat contradictory results, as a new poll attests.
Researchers at The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research spoke to 1,147 U.S. adults between January 9 and 13, 2025, asking whether the U.S. government spent too little or too much on particular issues and programs. Previous polls showed that a majority of respondents - roughly 60% in a 2023 poll - believe the U.S. spends too much overall. But when asked about specific issues this year, the story was quite different.
Sixty-seven percent of interviewees in the new poll said the U.S. spends too little on Social Security, including majorities in both parties. Just 6% said the U.S. spends too much, with 26% saying the spending is about right.
On education, 65% said the U.S. spending is spending too little, while 12% said it is too much. Similar results were recorded for Medicare (61% too little, 9% too much) and assistance to the poor (62%, 12%). Smaller majorities said the U.S. spends too little on Medicaid (55%, 15%) and border security (51%, 20%).
Americans showed more divisions over military spending. While 34% said the U.S. spends too little, another 34% said it spends too much and 32% said spending is about right. Federal law enforcement saw a bigger gap, with just 19% saying the U.S. spends too little and nearly half (47%) saying the U.S. spends too much.
Another area where Americans think the U.S. overspends is foreign aid. About seven in 10 interviewees said the U.S. spends too much to help other countries, including slightly more than half of Democrats and about 90% of Republicans.
As the Associated Press notes, however, Americans grossly overestimate how much the U.S. spends on foreign aid. Surveys have shown that Americans think the country spends nearly a third of its budget on international assistance, while the real number is closer to 1%.
Quotes of the Day
"When you look at what they found after looking for a few days ... this thing has paid for itself many times over now. Never mind if they find anything more."
- Famed anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, president and founder of Americans for Tax Relief, one a group of conservatives who spoke to the Associated Press about the early days of Elon Musk's DOGE effort to slash the federal workforce and identify spending that contradicts the Trump agenda. As the AP notes, DOGE has a current budget of about $14 million, and Musk has talked about finding savings between $1 trillion and $2 trillion.
"So far, DOGE seems more about looking for symbolic culture war savings than truly reducing the budget deficit in any meaningful way. These really get attention of Trump conservatives as fronts in the culture war, but ultimately do not save very much money at all."
- Jessica Riedl, a tax policy expert at the conservative Manhattan Institute. "If Trump were serious about the deficit, he'd be addressing Social Security, Medicare, defense and veterans benefits," Riedl added. "And that's if the public even cares. I've seen no real evidence that they do."
"They are trying to take down portions of the government that appear to be liberal or left leaning. And in the process, they are trying to expose some of the sillier aspects of what is being funded. ... Most of the public is innumerate. They don't know the difference between a million and a billion. It seems like a lot of money to you and me. But to the federal government, it's nothing."
- Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for social and economic policies at the Cato Institute, which has called for a 10% reduction in the federal workforce and a 10% pay cut for the remaining employees.
Fiscal News Roundup
- Vulnerable House Republican Warns Against Benefit Cuts – Politico
- Senate Democrats Try to Regroup Ahead of GOP Budget Barrage – Axios
- Judge Temporarily Halts Mass Firings at CFPB, Preserves Agency Data – Politico
- Treasury Watchdog Begins Audit of Musk DOGE Team's Access to Federal Government's Payment System – Associated Press
- Thousands of Probationary Employees Fired as Trump Admin Directs Agencies to Carry Out Widespread Layoffs – CNN
- Anger, Chaos and Confusion Take Hold as Federal Workers Face Mass Layoffs – Associated Press
- CDC to Lose One-Tenth of Workforce Under Trump Team Probationary Job Cuts – NBC News
- National Park Service Will Fire 1,000 Employees - but Hire 5,000 Seasonal Workers – Washington Post
- Judge Orders Temporary End to Freeze on Foreign Aid Spending – Roll Call
- Judge Sets a 5-Day Deadline for the Trump Administration to Start Lifting Its USAID Funding Freeze – Associated Press
- GOP Lawmakers Scramble to Protect Foreign Aid as Food Relief Languishes – Washington Post
- DOGE Gets Mixed Reviews From Conservatives Who Have Long Wanted Major Budget Cuts – Associated Press
- Vance Turns on European Allies in Blistering Speech That Downplayed Threats From Russia and China – CNN
- Trump's DOJ Is at War With Its Own Prosecutors – Axios
- Trump's Acting FEMA Leader Undercuts President's Claims About Disaster Money – Politico
- Trump Says Auto Tariffs Are Coming April 2 – New York Times
- Trump Orders End in Federal Funding for Any Schools That Require Covid Vaccines – NBC News
- Biden's EPA Issued $20 Billion in Green Grants. Now Trump's Administration Wants That Money Back – Associated Press
Views and Analysis
- To Pay for Tax Cuts, the GOP's Budget Plan Goes Full Scrooge – Catherine Rampell, Washington Post
- 'The W.T.O. Is Toast.' What Happens to Global Trade Now – Keith Bradsher, New York Times
- Why Trump Can't Close the Trade Deficit – Washington Post Editorial Board
- Republicans Risk Repeating Biden's Fiscal Mistakes – Washington Post Editorial Board
- Trump Is Badly Misreading Today's Economy – Heather Long, Washington Post
- Trump Says the Federal Workforce Is Too Big. Here's What to Know About Its Size – Aimee Picchi, CBS News
- How Trump's Directives Echo Project 2025 – Elena Shao, Karen Yourish and June Kim, New York Times
- How Trump's Medical Research Cuts Would Hit Colleges and Hospitals in Every State – Emily Badger et al, New York Times
- The Dangers of Arbitrary Trade Policy – Mary E. Lovely, New York Times
- The DOGE Czar's Plan to Loot Medicare – Maureen Tkacik, American Prospect
- Vance Uses Half-Truths to Lecture a European Audience Well Aware of the Threat of Authoritarian Rule – Nick Paton Walsh, CNN
- Can We Please Stop Calling These People Populists? – David Brooks, New York Times