TRUMP GETS SWAMPED
Published in the Jan. 24, 2026 issue.
The Washington, D.C., swamp remains undefeated.
President Donald Trump came into office a year ago and promised to shrink the federal government, lay off huge numbers of federal employees, run the government efficiently, and cut the $7.1 trillion federal budget down to size.
That didn’t happen in 2025 and it won’t be happening in 2026.
Once again, the latest effort to “drain the swamp” resulted in a new flood of cash that will keep the swamp green and healthy through 2026.
First the big numbers: The federal budget actually increased in 2025 by about 4% over 2024, said Yuval Levin, the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, on a recent Ezra Klein podcast. Levin also served on the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush.
Regarding efforts by Trump to shrink the federal budget, Yuval summed up, “more was said than done.” Several factors kept the budget from declining at all in 2025.
Congress never passed a new budget. It funded the government during 2025 by approving “continuing resolutions.” Those resolutions simply kept in place the spending levels from the last Biden budget, according to the U.S. Treasury website. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” added more spending increasing the overall budget.
The 2025 spending overwhelmed the cost-cutting and layoffs sort of instituted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk promised at least $1 trillion in cuts by the end of 2025.
Numerous estimates, including from the DOGE website, put the final savings at about $200 billion. That didn’t make much of a dent in a $7.1 trillion yearly federal budget.
The DOGE figure was contested by numerous budget analysts. They pointed to higher costs from the “fire and rehire” confusion from the first rounds of layoffs, when thousands of workers were laid off or furloughed then rehired. About 150,000 federal workers took the administration’s “Fork in the Road” retirement/buyout offer, according to the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM). They left work but stayed on the payroll through October, creating no salary savings in the 2025 fiscal year.
The layoffs and buyouts did reduce the federal workforce.
According to OPM, the federal workforce shrank by about 10% or about 220,000. That brought the workforce to about the same level as during the first Trump administration. Initially, there were more than 350,000 layoffs but roughly 100,000 workers were hired back or otherwise added to the workforce.
Since there was no corresponding legislation to codify the DOGE cuts and personnel changes, they will likely not have a long-term impact on the federal budget, said Yuval. Congress passed and Trump signed only 64 bills in 2025, the fewest bills in the modern era. Aside from the Big Beautiful Bill, few of those bills reshaped the budget or the federal rule-making process in a meaningful way, Yuval added.
The president’s attempts to slow spending by withholding Congressionally approved funding were blocked by the courts or eventually dropped by the administration. Yuval said 573 court cases had been filed challenging all manner of administration moves, and the administration lost 57% of those cases, “which is a very poor record.” Only 25 of the 326 cases the administration lost were appealed to the Supreme Court.
In early 2025, Trump announced a budget plan that would reduce the budget by $163 billion.
His budget outline is being ignored by Congress.
That is a surprising show of Congressional independence considering the first year of Trump’s second term has been marked by him systematically attacking most aspects of the federal government, foreign and domestic affairs, and generally upending huge swaths of American life and shattering or challenging established institutions and norms.
The House and Senate have quietly approved eight of 12 appropriation bills that essentially maintain current levels of federal funding. To avoid a filibuster by the Senate Democrats, both parties have compromised and worked together to shape the 2026 budget legislation. Republicans said the new budget bills do modestly cut funding in most areas. Democrats said the new budget bills avoid massive cuts to virtually all federal programs.
Republicans have slim majorities in the House and Senate. But the budget bills have passed the House by huge margins, 341 to 79, for two bills worth $76 billion funding bills for the Treasury, State, Financial Services, Foreign Aid, and National Security portions of the budget.
The House recently approved three more bills, 397 to 28, for Science, Commerce, Energy, Water, Interior and Environment. Similar margins in both chambers have approved funding for NASA, the Energy Department, and a wide range of other departments. Any savings might disappear when bills for Defense, Homeland Security, Human Services, Education and other big-ticket programs are completed.
Trump has been unusually silent while Congress has been rejecting his budget priorities. Some low-key comments by his staff indicate he will sign the new budget bills.
In general, Yuval said by relying on DOGE and executive orders the Trump administration has not used “traditional presidential power” to implement long-term, “durable policy changes” through the federal budget, which is usually how presidents and ruling parties create change and exercise power.
The Trump administration didn’t appear to have a clear budget or legislative agenda in 2025, Yuval said, and “it doesn’t look like it has a legislative agenda for the rest of his term.”
