Budget Request Would Cut Hundreds of Millions from Indian Country but Increase Health Service Funding
On April 3, the White House released its 92-page Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Presidential Budget Request, pairing roughly $1.5 trillion in defense spending with approximately $73 billion in domestic cuts. For Indian Country, the document delivers a mixed but largely troubling picture: hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts across housing, education, and economic development programs, partially offset by an increase for the Indian Health Service (IHS).
Housing
The steepest reductions target tribal housing. The request proposes $621 million for the Indian Housing Block Grant—a cut of more than $489 million from current levels—and would eliminate the Native Hawaiian Housing Block Grant entirely. The Community Development Block Grant program would also be zeroed out. The $3.3 billion program funds housing and infrastructure nationwide, including Native-led projects.
The administration also proposed eliminating the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provided $42.4 million to tribal grantees in FY 2026.
Education and Business
Within the Department of the Interior, cuts include the Bureau of Indian Affairs by 27 percent and the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) by 32 percent, a jarring proposal for nearly 180 BIE schools. A key source of tribal business financing would also end, stripping funds for the Native American Community Development Financial Institutions Assistance Program. Instead, the administration seeks to replace roughly $300 million in existing Native-focused programs with a $100 million “Rural Program” that contains no Native set-aside.
Health
Thankfully, health funding tells a different story. The administration requests $9.094 billion for IHS, a 13 percent increase of $1.109 billion over FY 2026.
Still, two long-standing programs are slated for deep cuts. Sanitation Facilities Construction would drop 87 percent to $14 million, and the Special Diabetes Program for Indians would fall 75 percent to $49 million. And the Urban Indian Health program would decrease by $95 million.
Notably, in this entire budget request the administration largely sidestepped the government-to-government tribal consultation required under Executive Order 13175 and related federal trust and treaty obligations. Tribal leaders and national organizations, including the National American Indian Housing Council and the Native CDFI Network, learned of many of the cuts through the public release of the president’s request.
Congressional appropriators will now determine what becomes law. In FY 2026, Congress rejected nearly $1 billion in similar proposed cuts to tribal programs, and lawmakers from both parties have already signaled that the final FY 2027 budget will likely differ significantly from the administration’s request.
Farm Bill Heads to House Floor, Axes Tribal Food Program
After nearly three years of stalled negotiations, the House is poised to vote on the 2026 Farm Bill next week. The 2026 House Farm Bill, H.R. 7567, will not extend or make permanent the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) Self-Determination Demonstration Project. This project was established in the 2018 Farm Bill. It allows tribes and tribal organizations to enter into self-determination contracts which allow them to purchase culturally relevant foods of their choosing through commercial vendors of their choice.
This provision was excluded from the 2026 Farm Bill due to concerns about its cost. In the 2018 Farm Bill, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that the program would only cost $34 million to run successfully. This year, the CBO reported that the program would cost $380 million over an eight-year period, a significant increase in estimated cost.
Representative Tom Cole (OK-4), Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, disagreed with the cost estimates of the CBO. In a letter he wrote to Representative Glenn Thompson (PA-15); he stated that the “CBO did not have or consider all the necessary details about how…self-determination contracts are carried out when initially formulating their estimated costs.” FCNL urges Congress to restore and expand the program’s permanency to ensure eligible tribes across the country can reliably access nutritional support for their communities.
