The White House released part of its 2026 budget proposal Friday. The plan outlines $163 billion in spending cuts that target health care, climate, housing and education programs. The proposal also confirms reports earlier this week about massive reductions for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Many cuts target programs and research centered around underrepresented communities and green energy. President Trump’s proposal describes the reductions as an effort to root out funding for “climate, clean energy, woke social, behavioral, and economic sciences and programs in low priority areas of science.”
Trump’s plan serves as a blueprint for fiscal debates ahead in Washington D.C. It must be approved by Congress. But, as the first budget request of Trump’s second term, it telegraphs his agenda alongside a Republican-controlled Congress.
The proposal calls for cutting $18 billion from the National Institutes of Health, which amounts to about one-third of the agency’s total budget. The White House called the NIH “too big and unfocused” in the proposal, arguing the cuts would reform the agency to be in line with Trump’s priorities.
But a smaller NIH could blow a hole in Pittsburgh’s research economy. The University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University both rely on federal funding to conduct research initiatives in life sciences and technology. Pitt was the sixth largest recipient of NIH funding last year, receiving more than $660 million.
Since Trump took office, the NIH has already terminated more than a dozen research grants between the two schools. The research sector has also taken hits from grants canceled by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Science Foundation. The changing financial landscape prompted Pitt to pause graduate and Ph.D. admissions and then implement a hiring freeze across the university.
While CMU said it has not had to implement a hiring freeze or pause admissions, a letter from president Farnam Jahanian this week announced a salary freeze for the upcoming fiscal year.
“Our aim with this decision is to ensure we continue investing in our people and our mission and hopefully avoid more disruptive actions,” Jahanian said, adding that the school made the decision after a broad review of its finances.
CMU declined to comment on President Trump’s budget outline Friday. A spokesperson said the school is still studying the proposal and evaluating the potential impacts of the cuts.
Administrators at the University of Pittsburgh did not respond to WESA’s request for comment on the budget Friday.
Jeremy Berg, director of Pitt’s Institute for Precision Medicine, called the proposed cuts to NIH — where he previously served as the director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences — “profound.” Berg has been keeping researchers and journalists up to speed on research funding turmoil via his BlueSky social account.
On Friday, he told WESA the proposal “focuses on the usual issues for this administration: COVID origins, DEI, and climate change, rather than the important accomplishments and challenges for NIH.”
While major research funding cuts could upend the research sector, Berg pointed to statements issued by several prominent Republicans Friday that took issue with some of the details of the budget request.
“Not surprisingly, it does not appear that this budget proposal will be taken seriously by the Congress,” Berg said.
Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she had “serious objections” to the defense spending increases in the budget as well as proposed funding cuts to social programs and biomedical research. She added, “ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse.”
The White House said the budget proposal is aimed at “eliminating research on climate change, radical gender ideology, and divisive racialism.”
The budget cuts $3.6 billion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The White House said its plan “refocuses” the CDC away from “duplicative, DEI or simply unnecessary programs.”
The plan would terminate several specialized CDC programs in favor of individual states funding them instead. The eliminated programs include: the National Center for Chronic Diseases Prevention and Health Promotion; National Center for Environmental Health; National Center for Injury Prevention and Control; the Global Health Center and Public Health Preparedness and Response; and Preventative Health and Human Services.
Beyond trimming NIH spending, the budget effectively eliminates the NIH’s National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities, which the White House describes as “replete with DEI expenditures.” The plan also eliminates funding for the Fogarty International Center, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and the National Institute of Nursing Research.
The plan would codify many of the spending cuts already implemented this year by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Federal judges have ordered the administration to resume much of the spending cut by executive orders in recent months, but it’s unclear how the plans will play out in court.
Pitt’s research portfolio has already taken a loss of $27 million so far this year. The university said during a town hall meeting this week that 113 federal research grants have either been canceled or are under review for falling out of line with the Trump administration’s priorities.
Pitt leaders said they hoped to win over Pennsylvania’s members of Congress to stop the bleeding. But Pennsylvania’s two Senators — Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Dave McCormick — did not release public statements about Trump’s budget and its impacts on the research economy as of Friday afternoon.
Neither Senator has responded to multiple requests from WESA for comment about the proposed budget or federal funding threats and how they could impact Pittsburgh’s meds and eds economy.
