The Trump administration issued a 2026 budget proposal on Friday afternoon that would eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and other federal agencies that support culture and the arts.
If passed by Congress, the proposal would have immediate repercussions for funding for arts and humanities in the US, directly impacting the agencies and the various nonprofits that rely on this funding, including the 56 state and territorial humanities councils that are funded by the NEH. The proposal would also eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS); these three agencies have been the subject of major cuts to their 2025 budgets in the past month.
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“The work of state and jurisdictional humanities councils includes programs that help veterans heal, teach children to read skillfully and think critically, and provide grants to grassroots, volunteer-driven projects that simply would not happen without the resources of humanities councils,” said Phoebe Stein, president of the Federation of State Humanities Councils, which supports the NEH-funded state humanities councils, in a statement.
She continued, “We will continue to work collaboratively with members of Congress to educate them on the impact and multiplier effect of these investments locally, and trust that they will continue to see the value of these small-but-mighty programs.”
The news comes as cuts from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) already stopped all funding for the 2025 fiscal year, along with $65 million cut from the NEH’s overall $210 million budget, and fired roughly 65 percent of its staff. The funds have instead been funneled into the creation of President Donald Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes, among other projects. In response, the Mellon Foundation dedicated $15 million in emergency funding to the state councils to help prevent many of them from closure.
A pending lawsuit filed by three humanities-focused organizations on May 1, however, aims to reverse the cuts in grant programs, staff, and divisions of the NEH that occurred in April.
On May 1, a judge also issued a temporary restraining order to block the Trump Administration‘s dismantling of the IMLS just days ahead of a mass layoff of nearly all employees.
In his first term as president, Trump tried and failed to eliminate funding for the NEH.
