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Edited by Brady Africk and Carter Hutchinson
Happy Thursday! In today’s newsletter, we examine the Trump administration’s attempt to cancel foreign aid spending, the president’s 2026 defense budget request, and Americans’ eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
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Topline: President Donald Trump recently attempted to cancel $4.9 billion in spending on foreign aid, but not everyone believes the action was legal, writes AEI’s Kevin R. Kosar. The administration’s proposal would cancel $3.2 billion in international development program spending, $900 million in contributions to the United Nations, $326 million in international peacekeeping funds, and hundreds of millions more in grants to foreign nations.
Rescissions Rules: Legislation from 1974 allows the executive to ask Congress not to spend previously appropriated funds. The president must notify Congress, setting the Senate and House up for a 45-day countdown to pass a bill to approve the request. Trump gamed this process by submitting a request less than 45 days before the appropriation would expire—flipping control from the legislature to the executive.
Shutdown Risk: If Congress fails to pass the 12 annual appropriations bills by October 1, the government will shut down. The Senate requires 60 votes to pass these funding bills, and Republicans only hold 53. Kosar warns that Democrats' frustration with Trump’s use of pocket rescissions may prevent them from joining their colleagues across the aisle to fund the government.
"The price for Democrats to vote for any spending bills or a continuing resolution might be iron-clad provisions forbidding the rescission of the $4.9 billion in foreign aid funds and GOP agreement not to pursue additional rescissions.”—Kevin R. Kosar
Topline: The Trump administration touts a $1 trillion budget for the Department of Defense in 2026, but AEI’s Elaine McCusker explains that only about 42 percent of this top-line number goes toward building and modernizing the American military.
Additional Spending: $17 billion of the 2026 budget request funds programs and activities that deviate from the Pentagon’s core function. In many cases, these programs are the responsibility of other federal agencies, such as medical research and education programs. McCusker highlights that these programs should be administered by other agencies with the authority and responsibility to execute them rather than being grouped in with defense spending.
Military Readiness: With the United States facing an array of global threats more potent than at any time since 1945, McCusker concludes that more of the Pentagon’s budget should be focused on core military missions. Nondefense spending in the defense budget misleads Americans as to how much is being spent on the military, she warns, and the diversion of resources has real-world consequences that range from deadly accidents to battlefield shortcomings.
"These nondefense programs and activities, combined with must-pay bills, create the illusion of a defense budget that is larger and more flexible than it is and contribute to the lack of transparency and accountability to the taxpayer.”—Elaine McCusker
Topline: In 2022, 5.6 million Americans received SNAP benefits through broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE), AEI’s Angela Rachidi and Erik Randolph find. BBCE allows states to expand SNAP to those making more than 130 percent of the federal poverty level, the statutory income limit set by Congress for eligibility. The number of Americans receiving SNAP benefits through BBCE was 1.2 percent in 2008, but had risen to 13.6 percent by 2022.
BBCE Explained: Congress originally established BBCE as a way to lower administrative burden and increase benefit program efficiency. Forty-one states and the District of Columbia have used it in recent decades to expand SNAP eligibility, some adopting the maximum 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
Advantages of Eliminating BBCE: Rachidi and Randolph contend that eliminating BBCE has several benefits, including increasing SNAP’s integrity, preventing states from inflating caseloads to access federally funded benefits, and reducing government costs. However, eliminating BBCE without other changes risks worsening the benefits cliff and discouraging SNAP recipients from working more hours or for higher pay. To mitigate this, the authors propose ending BBCE while realigning the program’s structure to uniformly reduce benefit cliffs.
"The solution is to eliminate BBCE while adjusting SNAP benefits to align the maximum benefit level, tapering point, benefit reduction rate, and income exit point so the SNAP benefit tapers gradually to zero instead of dropping off a cliff. Getting this right will eliminate the need for BBCE while addressing benefit cliffs and the associated work disincentives.”—Angela Rachidi and Erik Randolph
