“Young learners and families around the country rely on Head Start and eliminating funding for this essential program would be devastating to local communities,” warned one critic.

Critics on Monday decried the Trump administration’s consideration of a budget proposal that would completely eliminate funding for the early childhood education program Head Start—which serves over 800,000 low-income U.S. families—while increasing military spending to an unprecedented $1 trillion.

USA Todayreported Friday that an unnamed Trump administration official—who is not authorized to publicly discuss the plan—said the White House’s fiscal year 2026 spending proposal contains no funding for Head Start and explicitly lists the program among those slated for elimination.

Head Start is a core component of the so-called War on Poverty launched during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson 61 years ago. More than 40 million children have been served by the program, which provides free meals, healthcare, and developmental assessments and helps youth develop critical skills for success in the classroom and beyond.

The elimination of Head Start is included in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led plan for a far-right overhaul of the federal government whose objectives closely track Trump’s policies, despite the president’s efforts during his 2024 campaign to distance himself from the deeply unpopular proposal.

Yasmina Vinci, executive director of the National Head Start Association, warned that defunding the program would be “catastrophic.”

President Donald Trump’s evisceration of federal agencies—spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE—has already kneecapped Head Start via a Supreme Court-affirmed freeze on grants, the primary source of the program’s funding. The Administration for Children and Families, which runs Head Start, is also reeling from the Trump administration’s closure of half of its regional offices, including in Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Meanwhile, Trump supports a proposed $1 trillion budget for the Pentagon, up from $892 billion for the current fiscal year. The billionaire president and Republicans in Congress are also seeking $4.5 trillion in tax breaks that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans. This, as GOP lawmakers propose slashing $2 trillion in spending for Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and other safety net programs.

“While families feel the crunch with a worsening childcare crisis and much higher daily costs thanks to Trump’s tariffs, President Trump wants to eliminate Head Start and kick hundreds of thousands of kids out of the classroom, fire teachers, and make childcare and early learning more expensive and less safe,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Monday.

Murray continued:

This administration believes we cannot afford to help families get preschool or help kids get basic health services, but we can afford trillions of dollars more in tax breaks for billionaires. It’s offensive and just plain wrong, and let me be clear: Democrats won’t let a proposal like this go anywhere in Congress.

But that doesn’t mean Head Start and so many other programs aren’t under grave threat—because Trump has proven he’ll ignore our laws and do whatever he can to break these programs on his own. Trump has already tried illegally blocking funding for Head Start earlier this year, and programs across the country continued having problems accessing their funding long after his administration promised everything was fine. He has already fired the very people who keep Head Start running with no plan in place to ensure hundreds of thousands of families will keep getting the care they count on, so it’s on every one of us to keep speaking out and opposing this administration’s anti-family, pro-billionaire agenda.

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director of the Seattle-based advocacy group MomsRising, called the proposed elimination of Head Start “an abhorrent attack on children and families, ripping opportunities from our country’s youngest, damaging businesses, and hurting our economy.”

“Congress must hold the line and protect Head Start,” she added.

The First Five Years Fund—which “works to protect, prioritize, and build support for early learning and childcare programs at the federal level”—said Monday on social media that “young learners and families around the country rely on Head Start and eliminating funding for this essential program would be devastating to local communities.”

Hailey Gibbs, associate director of the Center for American Progress Early Childhood division, on Monday called Head Start “an incredible program” that “fosters kids’ early development, supports family well-being, and boosts local economies.”

“The Trump administration and its apologists in Congress want to gut it,” Gibbs added. “We must safeguard Head Start and the thousands of families it serves.”

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