AFT’s Weingarten Responds to Trump’s 2026 Budget Proposal

WASHINGTON-AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement after the release of President Donald Trump's fiscal 2026 budget blueprint, which asks Congress to cut programs that help Americans:

"President Trump's skinny budget cuts much of what helps poor, working-class and middle-class Americans, seemingly to pay for tax cuts for the rich. You can't make this up.

"The draconian cuts to public education and lifesaving medical research and health agencies demonstrate a lack of care for Americans' future and well-being.

"Our concern when the president started dismantling the Department of Education was not the bureaucracy but the funding. And now we know, he's actually shortchanging kids. He would gut K-12 programs by $5.4 billion. Support for student aid would be slashed.

"Healthcare programs would be cut by more than a quarter and labor by more than one-third. And what he isn't gutting he's using to create a slush fund for state bureaucrats to do whatever they want with Title I money.

"Every president gets to pursue their agenda, but Trump's budget proposal just strips away the supports children get in public schools across America, disproportionately in places that voted for him.

"Voters didn't expect to lose their reading or after-school programs for a tax cut for the ultra wealthy. Meanwhile, Trump's allies in Congress are trying to take an even bigger hatchet to critical supports for Americans-like healthcare, food assistance and education.

"We won't stop fighting for America's children, and we hope members of Congress will join us in opposing this proposal, which is a blatant attack on all of us."

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The AFT represents 1.8 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers; paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education faculty and professional staff; federal, state and local government employees; nurses and healthcare workers; and early childhood educators.