A leaked draft of the Department of Health and Human Services’ next budget shows that the Trump administration plans to eliminate a storied toddler health program among other major cuts, according to The Washington Post.
The proposal, which was generated by the Office of Management and Budget, would slash overall HHS spending by about a third, from $121 billion to $80 billion.
One of the programs to be eliminated is Head Start, the long-running initiative that provides toddlers from low-income families with education and health services. It began in 1965 as part of former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty.”
Currently, Head Start receives about $12 billion and enrolls around 800,000 children. It was among the targets of Project 2025, the far-right political playbook that Donald Trump denied having familiarity with while on the campaign trail. Trump’s OMB is now led by Russell Vought, the main author of Project 2025—one of a number of contributors now in high-profile administration roles.
The document defends the cuts by saying, “The federal government should not be in the business of mandating curriculum, locations and performance standards for any form of education.”
However, Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the National Head Start Association, told the Post that the cuts would be “catastrophic.”
“More than a million parents wouldn’t be able to go to work from all those children, or they would have to scramble to find some other type of option,” he said. “In a lot of communities, Head Start is the only early childhood provider in the community—especially rural America.”
Last month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. praised Head Start after touring one of its programs.
“I saw a devoted staff and a lot of happy children,” he said, according to Axios. “They are getting the kind of education and socialization they need, and they are also getting a couple of meals a day.”
The proposal also calls to slash the budget for the National Institute for Health and the Center for Disease Control by over 40 percent each, ending programs working on HIV, heart disease, obesity, and smoking.
Under the plan, the structure of the HHS would be completely reshuffled. For instance, the NIH’s 27 internal agencies would be consolidated into just eight.
It would establish a new $20 billion agency called “the Administration for a Healthy America,” which would incorporate parts of other agencies that had been pared down, such as primary care and environmental health.
The AHA would have $500 million set aside for pushing Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. The controversial health secretary has challenged the use of vaccines, claimed that autism isn’t caused by genetics, and raised the alarm about fluoride in the water supply.
The sweeping proposed cuts come after Kennedy ousted more than 10,000 HHS staffers—part of Trump and DOGE head Elon Musk’s effort to cut federal spending.
The final say on budget decisions rests with Congress, which holds a Republican majority in both houses. A spokesperson for the OMB told Politico that “no final funding decisions have been made.”
The HHS did not respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
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