House Republicans are calling for $13.7 billion in cuts from the Labor Department, Education Department, and Health and Human Services (LHHS) annual appropriations package in fiscal year 2026, Punchbowl News reported Monday.
Under their plan, funding for the Department of Labor would get cut by 28%, the Department of Education would incur 15% cuts, and HHS 6%, according to Punchbowl News.
The National Institutes of Health would be funded at its FY2025 level of $48 billion, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would get cut by $1.7 billion from the current fiscal year, according to the report.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has defended an FY2026 budget that follows a 25% reduction in the workforce, aimed at trimming bureaucracy.
The House’s FY2025 LHHS appropriations bill proposed slashing around $11.1 billion from the Education Department budget. Nearly 50% of the Education workforce was furloughed or laid off in 2025.
The LHHS funding bill is one of 12 appropriations bills Congress must get passed by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. LHHS is the largest domestic non-defense appropriations bill, covering roughly 30% of all non-defense discretionary spending.
Congress will likely have to pass a short-term spending measure to keep the government funded for a few weeks or months while it tries to finish the full-year package. But Republicans would need Democrat votes to pass an extension, and Democrats will want significant concessions.
Since the modern budget process began in 1976, Congress has met the Sept. 30 deadline only four times, the last coming in FY1997.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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