Heading to college or grad school

New graduate students can borrow at most $20,500 a year and $100,000 total; students in "professional" programs such as medicine, dentistry, law and pharmacy at most $50,000 a year and $200,000 total, with a $257,500 lifetime cap on all federal loans. Grad PLUS, which covered the full cost of attendance, is closed to new borrowers. Which programs count as "professional" was left to the Education Department, and its rule excluded nursing, physical therapy, social work and others.

The median cost of four years of medical school is well over $250,000. Students without family money must turn to private lenders, which charge more and usually want a co-signer. Private loans have no income-based repayment and no forgiveness for public service. Rural areas, which already struggle to recruit doctors, dentists and nurses, feel this first.

Establishment of loan limits for graduate and professional students and parent borrowers; termination of Graduate and Professional PLUS loan program

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan New limits on medical and nursing school loans worry health educators (NPR)
• Nonpartisan Changes to federal student loans could worsen the doctor shortage (Association of American Medical Colleges)
• Nonpartisan What the One Big Beautiful Bill will change for students, schools and colleges (NPR)
• Conservative The big beautiful fix for graduate school borrowing (American Enterprise Institute)
• Conservative A primer on private student lending in the post–Grad PLUS era (American Enterprise Institute)

The economic-hardship and unemployment deferments, which paused payments without interest on subsidized loans, are eliminated for new loans. General forbearance is limited to nine months in any two-year period.

If you lose your job with one of these loans, there is no deferment to fall back on. Under RAP your payment can drop to $10, but interest keeps accruing, and once forbearance runs out a missed payment is a default.

Deferment; forbearance

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan What the One Big Beautiful Bill will change for students, schools and colleges (NPR)
• Nonpartisan ED details 2026–27 FAFSA and Pell Grant eligibility changes (National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators)

In spring 2025 the National Institutes of Health cancelled grants on topics the administration disfavored, more than 900 of which went to court, and the National Science Foundation terminated more than $1 billion in awards. The NSF's 2026 budget came in below 2025 and new awards ran at about half the prior year's pace. A plan to cap reimbursement of university research overhead at 15% was struck down permanently, and the administration let its Supreme Court deadline lapse.

Fewer graduate-student and postdoctoral positions, interrupted clinical studies, and lab closures at the universities and academic medical centers that depend on the grants. The 2027 budget request proposes a further 12% cut to NIH and 54% to NSF, which Congress has not adopted.

A 5–4 order let NIH grant terminations proceed while leaving in place a finding that the underlying directives were unlawful; a separate attempt to cap university overhead at 15% was permanently blocked

Decided by a federal court. Opens the primary source.

• Advocacy Federal research-related litigation tracker (Association of American Medical Colleges)
• Nonpartisan NSF funding cuts, grant terminations, and the litigation (2026) (CASRAI)
• Nonpartisan NIH cap on indirect research costs struck down on appeal (Higher Ed Dive)
• Nonpartisan Trump administration abandons Supreme Court challenge to NIH indirect cost cap (R&D World)

Parent PLUS loans are capped at $20,000 a year and $65,000 per child, down from the full cost of attendance. Part-time students get prorated limits.

The cap is below the net price of many public universities for out-of-state students and most private colleges. Families fill the gap with private loans or the student does not enroll.

Establishment of loan limits for graduate and professional students and parent borrowers

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan What the One Big Beautiful Bill will change for students, schools and colleges (NPR)
• Nonpartisan ED details 2026–27 FAFSA and Pell Grant eligibility changes (National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators)

Staff fell from about 4,200 to about 2,100 in March 2025. A judge blocked the layoffs in May and the Supreme Court let them proceed in July. Since November 2025 the department has moved its K-12 formula grants, including Title I, to the Labor Department and other programs to HHS, Interior and State.

The department's own inspector general reported in June 2026 that functions Congress requires, including oversight of federal student aid and grants for English learners, were left with no staff and no evidence they were being performed. It also counted $1.3 billion in cancelled contracts and $504 million in cancelled grants, including 153 school mental-health awards. Students with disabilities, Title I schools, civil-rights complainants and more than 40 million loan borrowers are served by a much smaller agency.

Congress has not abolished the department and funded it for fiscal 2026

Signed by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Official Executive Order 14242: Improving education outcomes by empowering parents, states, and communities (Federal Register)
• Nonpartisan Education Department layoffs hindered congressionally mandated activities, inspector general reports (Government Executive)
• Nonpartisan A year after mass layoffs, Education Department keeps handing off its programs to other agencies (Federal News Network)

Citing executive orders on diversity programs, HHS withheld a year of funding from grantees serving 144 sites in 20 states. Seven states had no Title X provider at all during the freeze. The money was restored in December 2025 and Congress kept the program at $286 million, but the 2027 funding notice shifts priorities from contraception toward "fertility-awareness based methods," and the White House says 2026 is Planned Parenthood's last year in the program.

The Guttmacher Institute estimated 834,000 people, 30% of Title X patients, lost or nearly lost free or low-cost contraception, STI testing and cancer screening. Together with the one-year Medicaid ban in the One Big Beautiful Bill, 57 Planned Parenthood clinics in 20 states closed or merged after January 2025.

$65.8 million withheld from 16 grantees, including all 13 Planned Parenthood direct grantees; restored December 2025

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan An update on Medicaid, Title X and Planned Parenthood (KFF)
• Advocacy Withholding of funds could affect 30% of Title X patients (Guttmacher Institute)

The Congressional Budget Office added up the tax cuts and the benefit cuts for every income group. Households in the lowest tenth lose about $1,200 a year, 3.1% of their income, mainly from Medicaid and SNAP. Households in the highest tenth gain about $13,600 a year. Yale's Budget Lab and the Penn Wharton Budget Model reached the same shape.

If your household earns under about $25,000, the law on average takes more from you in benefits than it gives you in tax cuts. The tax cuts you do get, such as the larger standard deduction, are worth less to you than to a higher earner because you owe less tax to begin with.

Whole law: CBO distributional analysis of Public Law 119-21

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Official Distributional effects of Public Law 119-21 (Congressional Budget Office)
• Nonpartisan Distribution of tax cuts in the new tax law (Yale Budget Lab)
• Nonpartisan OBBBA: budget, economic, and distributional effects (Penn Wharton Budget Model)
• Conservative FAQ: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act tax changes (Tax Foundation)

The law's Medicaid cuts fall on rural areas in proportion to how much their residents rely on Medicaid, which is more than urban areas. KFF estimates about $137 billion of the $911 billion in federal Medicaid cuts over ten years lands in rural areas. The Rural Health Transformation Program offers $50 billion over five years, distributed to all 50 states in December 2025.

Republican senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Thom Tillis of North Carolina warned before the vote that the Medicaid cuts would close rural hospitals; Senator Susan Collins voted no in part for that reason. The University of North Carolina's Sheps Center identified more than 300 rural hospitals already at risk of closure or service cuts. When a rural hospital closes, the nearest emergency room can be an hour away for everyone in the county, insured or not, and it is often the largest employer.

Rural Health Transformation Program

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan How might federal Medicaid cuts affect rural areas? (KFF)
• Nonpartisan A closer look at the $50 billion rural health fund (KFF)
• Nonpartisan GOP budget bill could put 338 rural hospitals at risk of closure (Becker's Hospital Review (Sheps Center data))
• Nonpartisan Medicaid cuts threaten hundreds of hospitals, new report finds (NBC News)
• Conservative Don't cut Medicaid (op-ed, New York Times) (Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.))
• Conservative Tillis: Medicaid cuts "will betray the very promise" Trump made (NPR (Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.))
• Conservative Tillis denounces Trump's Big Beautiful Bill hours after retirement announcement (Fox News)
• Conservative Sen. Collins votes no, citing Medicaid cuts and rural hospitals (WGME (Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine))

The order paired a "deferred resignation" buyout, which about 140,000 employees took, with firings of probationary staff and layoffs across agencies. The Office of Personnel Management counts a net loss of 271,363 civilian employees between January 2025 and July 2026, the steepest drop in modern federal employment. The Government Accountability Office found that 18 of the 22 largest agencies lost more than a tenth of their staff.

Veterans make up about three in ten federal employees, so they took a large share of the losses. The effects show up as slower service at the agencies people deal with most: Social Security, the IRS, veterans' hospitals, weather offices and disaster response, each listed separately below. GAO's inspectors-general call the loss of experienced staff a top management risk for 2026.

Ordered agencies to plan large reductions in force and to hire at most one person for every four who leave

Signed by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Official Federal agency workforce changes: update for July 2025 to January 2026 (GAO-26-108583) (Government Accountability Office)
• Official Workforce changes dashboard (Office of Personnel Management)
• Official Recent federal workforce changes at OPM (GAO-26-108916) (Government Accountability Office)

FEMA recorded more than 4,300 separations in fiscal 2025, up 55%, with half its senior leadership posts vacant. The Government Accountability Office reported in August 2026 that the agency rescinded its strategic plan and cut staff without assessing what it could still do. A separate April 2025 decision cancelled the $4.5 billion program that paid for flood walls, culverts and wildfire hardening; a federal judge ruled that illegal and FEMA reopened it in March 2026.

FEMA had about 240 surge staff available for the 2026 hurricane season against 600 in 2025. A Politico analysis found the White House approved 23% of disaster-aid requests from Democratic-led states and 89% from Republican-led ones, a figure the administration disputes; 27 requests were pending in June 2026. Representative Rob Bresnahan, a Pennsylvania Republican, called cancelling the mitigation grants "the wrong call."

GAO-26-108427: staff cut without a plan for mission capacity; the White House stopped approving hazard-mitigation add-ons to disaster declarations from March 2025

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Official FEMA workforce: staff reductions and lack of planning may impact mission readiness (GAO-26-108427) (Government Accountability Office)
• Nonpartisan FEMA is not ready for hurricane season due to Trump upheaval, House Democrats argue (Government Executive)
• Nonpartisan FEMA complies with court order to resume major disaster preparedness grant program (PBS NewsHour / AP)
• Conservative Bresnahan applauds FEMA reversal on BRIC program (Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.))
• Official FEMA concedes in BRIC funding case (North Carolina Department of Justice) link down since 2026-10-30

The FDA lost about 3,500 positions, the CDC about 2,400 and NIH about 1,200. Units that disappeared included the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, its reproductive-health division that studied maternal deaths, the lead-poisoning surveillance branch, and about 900 of the 1,000 staff at the occupational-safety institute NIOSH, including the black-lung screening program for coal miners and the World Trade Center health program.

Black-lung X-ray screening in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio stopped for months. Certifications for the 9/11 health program stalled. Milwaukee lost CDC help with lead in its schools. After lawsuits and pressure from miners and firefighters, HHS revoked the NIOSH layoffs in January 2026, though many staff had already left. The secretary himself said about a fifth of the cuts were errors to be reversed.

From 82,000 to 62,000 employees; 28 divisions consolidated into 15

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan Mass layoffs begin at HHS; some employees turned away after showing up to work (ABC News)
• Advocacy HHS guts worker safety agency NIOSH (Economic Policy Institute)
• Nonpartisan Hundreds of laid-off NIOSH researchers return to work (FireRescue1)
• Nonpartisan RFK Jr. says HHS will reinstate 20% of reduced workforce after DOGE errors (Fierce Healthcare)

Tariffs are a tax on imports paid at the border by the importer and passed on in prices. The average tariff rate rose from about 2.5% to the highest level since the 1940s. The Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 in February 2026 that the emergency-powers law used for most of them did not authorize tariffs, and the administration reimposed them under other statutes.

The Tax Foundation puts the cost at about $1,000 per household in 2025 and $820 in 2026. Yale's Budget Lab and the Penn Wharton Budget Model land in the same range and find the burden falls hardest on lower-income households, who spend more of their income on goods. The Federal Reserve chair attributed between a half and three-quarters of core inflation in early 2026 to tariffs.

Learning Resources v. Trump (Feb 20, 2026) held the emergency-powers tariffs unlawful; replacements followed within days

Signed by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Conservative Trump tariffs: the economic impact of the trade war (Tax Foundation)
• Nonpartisan State of U.S. tariffs (Yale Budget Lab)
• Conservative Trump's tariffs will cost each American household $900 in 2026 (Reason (citing Penn Wharton))
• Official Learning Resources v. Trump (opinion, Feb 20, 2026) (Supreme Court of the United States)
• Official FOMC press conference transcript, March 18, 2026 (Federal Reserve)
• Conservative The incidence of tariffs: rates and reality (Cato Institute)
• Conservative WSJ editorial board: Americans "picking up most of the tab" for tariffs (The Hill (quoting the Wall Street Journal))

The rule would have required banks with more than $10 billion in assets to cap overdraft fees at $5, price them at cost, or treat them as loans with disclosures, starting October 2025. Congress repealed it before it took effect.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimated the cap would save consumers up to $5 billion a year, about $225 per household that pays the fees, which typically run about $35 each. Banks and the resolution's sponsors argued the cap would push banks to drop overdraft coverage for riskier customers.

A Congressional Review Act resolution sponsored by Sen. Tim Scott; a companion law ended CFPB supervision of large payment apps

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Official Congress repeals CFPB's overdraft rule (Congressional Research Service)
• Official CFPB closes overdraft loophole to save Americans billions in fees (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Dec 2024))
• Nonpartisan Congressional Review Act: resolutions in the 119th Congress (Wikipedia)

The health secretary dismissed every member of the committee and appointed a new one, several of whose members had no vaccine background. Between September 2025 and January 2026 the new panel downgraded COVID shots to "shared decision-making," dropped the combined MMRV shot for children under four, and ended the universal hepatitis B dose at birth. A federal judge stayed 13 of the 15 appointments and all their votes in March 2026, restoring the earlier recommendations.

Parents and doctors faced a year of conflicting federal guidance. Measles cases reached 2,289 in 2025 and 2,777 by August 2026, the most since 1992, with 93% in unvaccinated people. Senator Bill Cassidy, the Republican chair of the health committee and a physician, said the new panel "may even have a preconceived bias" and should not meet. Major insurers pledged to keep covering the earlier schedule at no cost through the end of 2026.

The committee's votes decide which vaccines insurers must cover at no cost and which the Vaccines for Children program supplies

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Conservative Kennedy's new vaccine panel lacks experience and shouldn't meet, Sen. Cassidy says (NBC News (Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La.))
• Nonpartisan The state of U.S. vaccine policy: special edition, March 17, 2026 (CIDRAP, University of Minnesota)
• Nonpartisan RFK Jr.'s purge of CDC vaccine advisers prompts outrage (Science)
• Nonpartisan U.S. measles cases in 2026 surpass last year's total (Healthline)

CBO scores the law at $3.4 trillion in added deficits over ten years, about $4.1 trillion with interest, and the law raised the debt limit by $5 trillion to make room. Conservative budget analysts at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Cato Institute and the Manhattan Institute made the same criticism.

More federal borrowing competes with everyone else's borrowing. Moody's stripped the United States of its last AAA rating in May 2025 citing this trajectory. Higher Treasury yields flow into mortgage rates, car loans and credit cards, and interest is now one of the largest items in the federal budget, crowding out everything else.

Whole law: CBO cost estimate (and the $5 trillion debt-limit increase in Sec. 72001)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Official Estimated budgetary effects of Public Law 119-21 (Congressional Budget Office)
• Official Effects on deficits and the debt of Public Law 119-21 (Congressional Budget Office)
• Nonpartisan Final OBBBA score confirms long road to fiscal recovery (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)
• Nonpartisan OBBBA dynamic score comes in at $4.7 trillion (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)
• Nonpartisan Interest costs associated with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Yale Budget Lab)
• Nonpartisan Mortgage costs could rise under debt-financed reconciliation bill (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)
• Nonpartisan Moody's downgrades United States credit rating on increase in government debt (CNBC)
• Conservative Bill more like disaster, not "beautiful" (Cato Institute)
• Conservative Tax bill highlights the collapse of GOP policymaking (Manhattan Institute (Brian Riedl))
• Conservative Belated Republican objections glide over the bill's blatant fiscal irresponsibility (Reason)
• Conservative The Senate's big beautiful blunder could increase the debt by $6 trillion (Cato Institute)
• Conservative Why I said no to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.))
• Conservative Musk agrees with Massie: bill is a "debt bomb ticking" (Fox News)
• Conservative Two conservatives debate: is the Big Beautiful Bill a disaster? (Open to Debate)

The 2022 incentives that paid manufacturers to build batteries, solar panels, EVs and new generation in the United States drew most of their investment to Republican-held districts. The law ended or wound down those credits early and added foreign-sourcing rules that disqualify many remaining projects.

E2, which tracks announced projects, counted $76 billion and about 99,000 jobs cancelled between January 2025 and May 2026, with cancellations outpacing new announcements three to one in 2025 and 57% of the cancelled dollars in Republican districts. Four Republican senators had warned in April 2025 that repeal would jeopardize capital allocation and job creation. Fewer new power plants as data-center demand rises is one reason electricity prices are projected higher.

Termination and restrictions on clean electricity production credit (and Secs. 70501–70515)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan The 2025 reconciliation law: energy provisions explained (Bipartisan Policy Center)
• Advocacy Clean Economy Works: 2025 year in review (E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs))
• Advocacy Clean Economy Works: Q1 2026 (E2)
• Advocacy Clean Economy Works: April–May 2026 (E2)
• Nonpartisan Clean Investment Monitor: Q2 2026 update (Rhodium Group / MIT CEEPR)
• Conservative Curtis, Murkowski, Tillis, Moran express support for energy tax credits (Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah))

The January 2025 rule would have barred credit bureaus from listing medical bills and lenders from using them. The bureau under new leadership joined the lenders' motion, and the court vacated the rule as exceeding the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

The bureau had estimated about 15 million people would have had medical bills removed from their reports, raising scores by about 20 points on average and enabling roughly 22,000 more mortgage approvals a year. Medical collections over $500 remain reportable.

The bureau switched sides and joined the industry plaintiffs; the court also held that federal law preempts similar state laws

Decided by a federal court. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan Court overturns federal rule that keeps medical debt off credit reports (Berkeley Center for Consumer Law)
• Nonpartisan GOP aims to repeal CFPB medical debt credit report ban (Bloomberg Law)
• Official Prohibition on creditors and consumer reporting agencies concerning medical information (Regulation V) (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)

In Minneapolis an ICE agent shot and killed Renée Good on January 7, 2026 and a Border Patrol agent shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti on January 24; video analyses contradicted the department's accounts. ProPublica reported in September 2026 that Justice Department leadership overruled its own prosecutor to block a civil-rights charge in a third shooting. A Chicago judge ordered 455 people released after finding arrests unlawful.

The Pretti killing led Senate Democrats to reject Homeland Security funding, producing a 76-day lapse in which TSA officers missed paychecks and more than a thousand quit. The Homeland Security secretary was replaced in March 2026. For residents of the targeted cities, the surges meant armed federal operations in neighborhoods, schools and courthouses regardless of citizenship.

About 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents sent to Minnesota; a federal judge found ICE violated at least 96 court orders there

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan Operation Metro Surge (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Killing of Renée Good (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Killing of Alex Pretti (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Justice Department blocked a serious charge against an ICE agent in a Minneapolis shooting (ProPublica)
• Nonpartisan Trump signs Homeland Security funding bill, ending record shutdown (PBS NewsHour)

About 900,000 federal employees were furloughed and 700,000 more worked unpaid. The Agriculture Department declined to fund November SNAP benefits; two judges ordered payment, the administration offered partial benefits, and full benefits flowed only after the November 12 funding law. The FAA cut flights by up to 10% at 40 major airports for ten days because of controller shortages.

One in eight Americans faced a gap in food assistance at the start of November 2025. Federal workers got back pay under a 2019 law; most contractors did not. About 4,000 layoff notices issued during the shutdown were rescinded. The next funding deadline is December 11, 2026.

The longest shutdown in U.S. history; the current stopgap funds the government through December 11, 2026

Funding cut, frozen or shifted. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan Government shutdowns Q&A (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)
• Nonpartisan 2025 United States federal government shutdown (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan SNAP during the 2025 U.S. federal government shutdown (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Appropriations watch: FY2027 (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)

The war that began on February 28, 2026 closed the Strait of Hormuz for months. The Energy Information Administration recorded the largest oil-supply disruption in the market's history, and Brent crude went from about $72 to nearly $120 in March and was back above $100 in September.

The national average for regular gas rose a dollar in a month, peaked at $4.56 in May, and was $4.28 on September 10, 2026 against $3.19 a year earlier. Diesel, which moves food and freight, was nearly $6. July's consumer price index showed energy up 14.7% over the year, and Goldman Sachs estimated the war adds more than a point to headline inflation in 2026.

No congressional authorization; the Pentagon reported $37.5 billion in costs through July 2026 and requested $67 billion more

Ordered by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan US, Iran engaged in "tanker war": where is the months-long conflict headed? (Al Jazeera)
• Official Short-Term Energy Outlook, September 2026 (U.S. Energy Information Administration)
• Nonpartisan National gas average jumps one dollar in one month (AAA)
• Nonpartisan National average gas prices (live) (AAA)
• Official Consumer Price Index, July 2026 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• Conservative Iran war could push inflation higher this year, Goldman Sachs says (Fox Business)
• Nonpartisan Cost of Iran war rises to $37.5 billion; Pentagon requests $67.1 billion more (Defense News)
• Conservative Marjorie Taylor Greene: "What happened to drill baby drill, cheap gas, and no more foreign wars?" (Benzinga / Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.))
• Nonpartisan Senate Republicans voice concerns over Iran war and gas prices (The Hill)

Tax credits for new wind and solar generation end for projects not under construction by July 2026 or in service by the end of 2027, and new restrictions on foreign components make many remaining projects ineligible. Wind and solar were the majority of new generation being built, at a time when demand from data centers is rising fast.

Independent modelers (Energy Innovation, the Rhodium Group, Princeton's REPEAT project) project household energy costs rising by roughly $150 a year by 2030 and more after. They put residential electricity prices about 6% higher by 2035, with the largest increases in states like Kentucky, Oklahoma and South Carolina. These are projections, not measurements, and utility rate cases in 2026 are where they start to show up.

Termination and restrictions on clean electricity production credit (and Sec. 70513, investment credit)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Official Average price of electricity to ultimate customers by end-use sector (U.S. Energy Information Administration)
• Nonpartisan Economic impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act energy provisions (Energy Innovation)
• Nonpartisan What passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill means for U.S. energy and the economy (Rhodium Group)
• Conservative How the One Big Beautiful Bill changes green energy tax credits (Tax Foundation)

The federal government has paid 100% of SNAP benefits since 1964. From fiscal year 2028, states with payment error rates of 6% or more pay 5% to 15% of benefit costs, and every state's share of administrative costs rises from 50% to 75%.

Most states had error rates above 6% in 2024, so this is billions of dollars a year that state budgets do not have. States can respond by restricting eligibility or cutting outreach. In the extreme, a state can leave the program. Several governors have said openly that they may not be able to afford it.

Matching funds requirements (and Sec. 10106, Administrative cost sharing)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan By the numbers: the megabill's health and food assistance cuts (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)
• Nonpartisan Food stamp changes will cost states billions, raising fears about SNAP's future (Stateline)
• Nonpartisan Red states target SNAP fraud, errors under threat of costly federal penalties (Stateline)
• Nonpartisan The SNAP state cost-shift policy leaves the program's existence to chance (Brookings Institution)

CBO projects about 10 million more uninsured people in 2034 from the law's health provisions, plus roughly 4 million more from the expiration of enhanced marketplace subsidies. Uninsured people still get sick; hospitals treat them in emergency rooms and write off the cost.

Hospitals respond by closing maternity wards and psychiatric units, freezing hiring, laying off staff, and raising prices for privately insured patients, which flows into everyone's premiums. The American Hospital Association estimated hospitals would lose hundreds of billions of dollars over ten years.

Combined effect of Title VII, Subtitle B (Medicaid, Medicare and marketplace provisions)

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Official Estimated effects on the number of uninsured people in 2034 (Congressional Budget Office)
• Nonpartisan Allocating CBO's estimates of federal Medicaid spending reductions across the states (KFF)
• Nonpartisan Hospitals are making cuts after the "big beautiful bill" (CNN)
• Nonpartisan Medicaid cuts threaten hundreds of hospitals, new report finds (NBC News)
• Advocacy Analysis highlights impact of Medicaid cuts on rural patients and hospitals (American Hospital Association)

About 1,500 people convicted over January 6 were pardoned on the first day; by June 2026 at least 97 had been arrested or charged again, including for sex crimes and domestic violence. Executive orders stripped clearances and federal access from firms that had represented the President's opponents; every one that went to court was struck down. Indictments of former FBI director James Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James were dismissed because the prosecutor who signed them was unlawfully appointed, and grand juries twice refused to re-indict James.

About 140 officers injured on January 6 saw the convictions of their attackers erased. Anyone who needs a lawyer willing to sue the government benefits from the rulings, and about $940 million of legal capacity was redirected under the settlements. The Supreme Court separately blocked the removal of a Federal Reserve governor 5–4.

Four of the law-firm orders were permanently enjoined; nine firms instead pledged about $940 million in pro bono work to administration priorities

Signed by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Official Proclamation 10887: pardons for January 6 offenses (The White House)
• Nonpartisan January 6 pardons (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Perkins Coie (executive order and ruling) (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan WilmerHale (executive order and ruling) (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Indictment of James Comey (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Trump v. Cook (SCOTUSblog)

The National Parks Conservation Association counts more than 24% of the permanent workforce gone since January 2025. Visitors have found closed visitor centers, shuttered campgrounds in the Great Smoky Mountains, and slower search and rescue at the Grand Canyon.

Gateway towns depend on park visitation, and the losses fall on their summer economies as much as on visitors. Congress rejected the budget cut and told the service to keep parks staffed, but the people who left have not been replaced.

The 2026 budget proposed cutting park operations by about $900 million and handing sites to states; Congress held funding flat

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Advocacy Inside the FY26 National Park Service budget (National Parks Conservation Association)
• Advocacy Senate rejects national park funding and staffing cuts (National Parks Conservation Association)
• Advocacy The administration is axing funding and staff for national parks (Center for American Progress)

The agency ended 2025 with about 74,000 employees, down from 102,000. Most people who e-filed with direct deposit got refunds on the normal schedule in 2026. Paper returns took 30 days to process instead of 16, paper refund checks 36 days instead of 13, and the paper-return system was down for the first six weeks of the season, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The IRS answered 59% of calls on its main lines and 19% on the identity-theft line, where more than 500,000 victims wait about 20 months for their cases to be resolved. Yale's Budget Lab estimates a 22,000-person cut costs about $198 billion in revenue over ten years as audits of high earners fall, which the Peterson Foundation, a deficit-focused group, says drives deficits higher.

Headcount fell from about 102,000 to about 74,000 during 2025 (National Taxpayer Advocate)

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan IRS staffing cuts delayed paper returns and refunds, GAO report says (The Tax Adviser)
• Nonpartisan IRS did better than expected in tax season after slashing staff, except on the phone (Associated Press (via ABC7))
• Nonpartisan IRS staffing cuts will reduce revenues, driving deficits higher (Peter G. Peterson Foundation)

Staffing fell from about 4,550 to under 4,000 in early 2025. By May, 52 of 122 forecast offices had vacancy rates over 20%, 30 had no meteorologist in charge, at least eight had ended overnight operations, and weather-balloon launches were cut in several states.

Thinner staffing during severe weather means fewer people issuing and coordinating warnings. After the July 2025 Texas Hill Country floods killed more than a hundred people, critics noted that the local office's warning-coordination post was vacant; whether that changed the outcome is disputed. The service remains more than 300 people below its early-2025 level.

NOAA was authorized to hire 450 replacements in August 2025; 274 were on board by June 2026

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan NOAA is scrambling to fill forecasting jobs after cuts to the National Weather Service (NBC News)
• Official Letter on NOAA and National Weather Service cuts (Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.))

Texas redrew its map in 2025 to target five Democratic seats; the Supreme Court allowed it, and Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee followed, while California voters approved a countermap. Wikipedia's tally of the maps is about nine seats toward Republicans and four toward Democrats before a vote is cast. Executive Order 14248, which would have required documentary proof of citizenship to register with the federal form and discarded mail ballots arriving after Election Day, was blocked by two courts. The SAVE Act, which would write the citizenship requirement into law, passed the House twice and failed in the Senate.

Millions of voters were moved into new districts months before the November 3, 2026 midterms, and majority-Black districts in Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee were eliminated. The Justice Department also sued 23 Democratic-led states for unredacted voter files; the first suits were dismissed on privacy grounds.

A 6–3 ruling held that Voting Rights Act compliance does not require race-based districts; plaintiffs must now prove intentional discrimination

Decided by a federal court. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan Louisiana v. Callais (SCOTUSblog)
• Nonpartisan Louisiana v. Callais (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan 2026 United States House of Representatives elections (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens (SCOTUSblog)
• Official Executive Order 14248: Preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections (The White House)
• Nonpartisan Executive Order 14248 (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (Wikipedia)

Congress repealed the rule that put nonbank payment apps with more than 50 million transactions a year under bank-style federal supervision. The GENIUS Act created the first federal regime for stablecoins, which must redeem at par but are not insured deposits and pay no interest. Bitcoin, meanwhile, fell about 25% between the inauguration and September 2026 despite the creation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

Users of payment apps lose proactive oversight aimed at fraud against older adults and sudden account closures, though existing consumer laws still apply after the fact. Consumer Reports and the New York attorney general criticized the stablecoin law for imposing no duty to return stolen funds.

The repealed rule would have examined Venmo, Cash App and Apple Pay for fraud, privacy and account freezes; the GENIUS Act licenses dollar stablecoins with one-to-one reserves

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Official CFPB finalizes rule on federal oversight of popular digital payment apps (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Nov 2024))
• Nonpartisan Congressional Review Act: resolutions in the 119th Congress (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan GENIUS Act (Wikipedia)
• Official OCC news release 2026-69 on GENIUS Act implementation (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency)
• Official Coinbase Bitcoin price (CBBTCUSD) (FRED)

The order directed the department to use emergency powers to stop fossil-plant retirements. Plants in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Indiana, Washington, Colorado and Florida have been kept open on rolling orders. Owners recover the cost from regional ratepayers.

Consumers Energy spent $401 million running the Campbell plant in Michigan through March 2026 and is seeking $180 million from its customers. The Sierra Club puts the total added cost at about $549 million a year; the industry analyst IEEFA counted more than $300 million through May 2026. The grid regulator says the orders helped during a January storm; grid analysts say there is no emergency. Residential electricity averaged 18.34 cents per kilowatt-hour in June 2026, up 5% in a year.

Seven plants scheduled to close were ordered to keep running; none at the request of the owner, grid operator or state regulator

Signed by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Official 2026 DOE Section 202(c) emergency orders (U.S. Department of Energy)
• Official Executive Order 14261: Reinvigorating America's beautiful clean coal industry (The White House)
• Nonpartisan DOE emergency orders are incurring additional costs; what are the benefits? (Utility Dive)
• Advocacy Cost of coal plant emergency orders already more than $300 million (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis)
• Official Average price of electricity to ultimate customers by end-use sector (U.S. Energy Information Administration)

About 4,000 California Guard and 700 Marines were sent to Los Angeles over the governor's objection; a judge ruled the deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act and troops left in December 2025. Two thousand Guard remain in Washington, where the Pentagon says the mission runs to January 2029. Deployments to Chicago and Portland were blocked by the Supreme Court. Memphis and New Orleans received Guard with their governors' consent.

Residents of the capital live with a standing military presence for the rest of the term, and two West Virginia Guard members were shot there in November 2025, one fatally. The ruling sharply limits involuntary deployments to states that object unless the Insurrection Act is invoked, which it has not been.

A 6–3 ruling held the President may federalize a state's Guard over its objection only when the regular military could lawfully be used and is unable to act

Decided by a federal court. Opens the primary source.

• Official Trump v. Illinois (per curiam, Dec 23, 2025) (Supreme Court of the United States)
• Nonpartisan Trump v. Illinois (SCOTUSblog)
• Nonpartisan Newsom v. Trump (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Executive Order 14333 (District of Columbia) (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan Domestic military deployments by the second Trump administration (Wikipedia)

The aid agency was closed and $7.9 billion rescinded; a Lancet study projected 14 million excess deaths abroad by 2030. At home, Food for Peace had bought U.S. commodities for shipment abroad. Canadian trips to the United States fell 25% in 2025, Canadian provinces pulled U.S. alcohol from shelves, and U.S. wine exports to Canada fell from $447 million to $104 million. In July 2026 the United States declined to renew the North American trade pact for sixteen years, putting it on annual review.

Border-state tourism in New York, Washington, Vermont, Maine, Michigan and Florida, and wine and spirits producers in California, Kentucky and Oregon absorbed the losses. Auto and farm supply chains face yearly uncertainty about the trade agreement.

83% of aid programs cancelled; Food for Peace moved to the Agriculture Department

Signed by the President. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan United States Agency for International Development (2025 dismantling) (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan 2025 Canadian boycott of the United States (Wikipedia)
• Nonpartisan United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (Wikipedia)

In February 2025 the acting director ordered all bureau staff to stop work and closed headquarters; a court blocked mass firings, but the bureau then announced it would not prioritize enforcement outside pending cases, dropped oversight of buy-now-pay-later lenders and withdrew a proposed rule on data brokers. The law then cut its maximum funding from 12% to 6.5% of the Federal Reserve's operating budget. The bureau has returned more than $20 billion to consumers since 2011 through enforcement against banks, lenders, debt collectors and credit bureaus.

Fewer examiners and fewer enforcement actions against overdraft-fee abuses, medical-debt reporting errors, and predatory lenders. The agency handles complaints for every consumer with a bank account, credit card, mortgage or student loan.

Funding cap for the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the enacted text at that section.

• Nonpartisan Trump's "big beautiful bill" slashes CFPB funding: what it means for you (CNBC)
• Nonpartisan GAO details CFPB reorganization, funding cuts and litigation (Consumer Financial Services Law Monitor)
• Official The CFPB budget: background, trends, and policy options (Congressional Research Service)
• Conservative Scott applauds Senate passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill (Senate Banking Committee (Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C.))

The Government Accountability Office found that Congress rescinded $6.4 billion of unspent Inflation Reduction Act money in the One Big Beautiful Bill, and that in response to January 2025 executive orders the EPA, Transportation, Interior and Commerce departments cancelled roughly 800 awards worth $17.8 billion, with thousands more under review.

Locally this looked like the Transportation Department's September 2025 termination of approved trail, bike-lane and pedestrian-safety grants, and the cancellation of the $2.4 billion program that funded projects reconnecting neighborhoods split by highways. Cities had hired engineers and matched funds on the strength of awards that were then withdrawn.

GAO-26-108434

Funding cut, frozen or shifted. Opens the primary source.

• Official Status of IRA and IIJA funds: rescissions and cancelled awards (Government Accountability Office (GAO-26-108434))
• Advocacy The reconciliation bill takes back billions from locally led projects (Transportation for America)
• Nonpartisan Trump cancels grants for pedestrian safety, bike lanes (Governing)

The law clawed back the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's entire two-year appropriation and most of a year's foreign aid, sparing $400 million for the PEPFAR AIDS program. The corporation announced its closure in August 2025 and its board voted to dissolve in January 2026.

The corporation funded more than 1,500 local stations. Rural stations received 45% of the money and for some it was more than half their revenue, so the losses fall on local news, children's programming and the emergency-alert relays those stations carry. Republicans Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mark Amodei and Brian Fitzpatrick voted no.

Passed 216–213 in the House and 51–48 in the Senate; rescinded $1.07 billion for public broadcasting and $7.9 billion in foreign aid

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Official Rescissions Act of 2025, Public Law 119-28 (govinfo.gov)
• Nonpartisan What's in the Rescissions Act of 2025? (USAFacts)
• Nonpartisan Corporation for Public Broadcasting (Wikipedia)

The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act funded semiconductor factories and a national research network. The factory grants largely survived, but the Commerce Department cancelled $7.8 billion of the $11 billion research appropriation, including the $7.4 billion National Semiconductor Technology Center award, and took a 9.9% equity stake in Intel as a condition of grants Congress had already appropriated.

Research jobs and university partnerships that were funded on paper did not happen, and companies planning decade-long investments saw the rules change twice in a year. The One Big Beautiful Bill raised the semiconductor investment credit from 25% to 35%, which the industry welcomed.

GAO-26-109121

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Official CHIPS for America: status of incentive and R&D funds (Government Accountability Office (GAO-26-109121))
• Nonpartisan Commerce cuts $7.4 billion in CHIPS Act funding for Natcast (Manufacturing Dive)
• Conservative Commerce demands equity from tech companies as condition of federal funding (Fox Business)
• Advocacy SIA applauds passage of strengthened semiconductor investment credit (Semiconductor Industry Association)

The president tried to fire a Fed governor over unproven allegations, and the Justice Department subpoenaed the Fed over the chair's testimony; courts blocked both. Kevin Warsh became chair in May 2026 on a 54–45 vote, the narrowest ever. The Fed held rates at 3.50% to 3.75% in July 2026, citing elevated inflation.

The average 30-year mortgage rate was 6.76% in the week of September 10, 2026, against 6.91% the week the term began and 6.35% a year earlier. On a $400,000 loan the rise from a year ago adds roughly $100 a month. Higher federal borrowing, tariffs and the energy shock are the reasons the Fed gives for not cutting.

A 5–4 decision held that the attempted removal of Governor Lisa Cook was unconstitutional; a grand-jury probe of Chair Powell was quashed as an effort to "harass and pressure" him

Decided by a federal court. Opens the primary source.

• Official 30-year fixed mortgage rate, weekly (MORTGAGE30US) (Freddie Mac via FRED)
• Nonpartisan Lisa Cook (Wikipedia)
• Official Board of Governors: members (Federal Reserve)
• Nonpartisan Supreme Court says Fed's Lisa Cook can stay in her job (NPR)

The FDA commissioner announced that COVID vaccines would be approved only for people 65 and older and for anyone six months and up with a listed risk condition. The fall 2025 vaccines carried those labels. A separate directive dropping the recommendation for healthy children and pregnant women was found in March 2026 to have "no legal effect."

The FDA's own estimate is that 100 to 200 million Americans remain eligible. Healthy adults under 65 need a listed condition such as asthma, diabetes or obesity to get a shot on-label, and pharmacy access for others varied by state in fall 2025. Insurers said they would keep covering the shots through 2026, so the barrier is eligibility rather than cost.

Approval for healthy people under 65 now requires new randomized trials

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan FDA to limit COVID-19 vaccine to people over 65 and others at high risk (American Hospital Association)
• Conservative Trump FDA overhauls COVID-19 vaccine approval (Fox News)
• Nonpartisan FDA approves fall COVID shots, but with new restrictions (NBC News)

The IRS's free, government-run tax-filing tool served taxpayers in 25 states in 2025. The law did not abolish it outright but funded a plan to replace it with a public-private option, and the IRS ended Direct File before the 2026 season.

People with simple returns go back to paid software or the more limited Free File partnership, at the same time as new deductions (tips, overtime, seniors, car loans) make simple returns less simple.

Follow-on: the law funded a task force to replace Direct File (Sec. 70607); the IRS then ended the program

Passed by Congress and signed. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan IRS Direct File will not be available in 2026, agency tells states (Federal News Network)

The longest funding lapse for any agency. TSA officers missed their first full paycheck on March 13; more than 1,100 of about 50,000 quit by late April, and callout rates reached 55% at some airports, with ICE agents used at checkpoints. FEMA suspended non-disaster work. ICE kept operating on money from the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Real delays for travelers and missed pay for about 260,000 Homeland Security employees. The final law added $20 million for body cameras and $26.4 billion for the disaster relief fund.

Democrats demanded judicial warrants, body cameras and limits on operations at schools and churches; the final law funds TSA, the Coast Guard and FEMA and carves ICE out for reconciliation

Funding cut, frozen or shifted. Opens the primary source.

• Official Homeland Security appropriations, Public Law 119-86 (govinfo.gov)
• Nonpartisan Trump signs Homeland Security funding bill, ending record shutdown (PBS NewsHour)
• Nonpartisan 2026 United States federal government shutdowns (Wikipedia)

The rule withdraws the 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and rescinds every federal greenhouse-gas standard for cars, trucks and heavy vehicles from model year 2012 onward, along with the credit-trading and reporting systems. EPA claims $1.3 trillion in avoided compliance costs. Separately, the One Big Beautiful Bill set the fuel-economy penalty to zero.

Automakers no longer face federal limits tied to fuel use, so the lifetime fuel savings the standards were designed to deliver to drivers are no longer required. California and more than a dozen states plan to keep their own rules, splitting the market. The average new vehicle cost $50,089 in August 2026, up 1.9% in a year, so there is no sign the savings reached sticker prices.

Docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194; the agency did not estimate the health and environmental costs

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Nonpartisan EPA repealed the endangerment finding and vehicle greenhouse-gas standards (Harvard Environmental & Energy Law Program)
• Nonpartisan EPA finalizes repeal of greenhouse gas endangerment finding (Jones Day)
• Nonpartisan Congress eliminates CAFE penalties for passenger cars and light trucks (Sidley Austin)
• Conservative Car companies won't be fined for missing arbitrary fuel-efficiency goals (Reason)
• Nonpartisan Average new-vehicle transaction price moves back above $50,000 in August (Cox Automotive / Kelley Blue Book)

The 2024 update cut the allowed emission of toxic metals by 67%, tightened the mercury limit for lignite plants by 70%, and required continuous monitoring. The repeal drops all three. EPA's own 2024 analysis said the update would remove about 1,000 pounds of mercury a year and produce $300 million in health benefits.

Mercury damages developing brains, and the burden falls on people downwind of the roughly 200 remaining coal units, mostly in the Midwest, Appalachia and Texas. The Sierra Club calculates the dirtiest plants can now emit 50% more mercury. A separate proposal to repeal carbon limits on power plants would forgo standards EPA projected would prevent up to 1,200 premature deaths a year by 2035.

Reverts to the 2012 limits; EPA has also stopped counting avoided deaths and asthma attacks as benefits when writing air rules

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Official Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (Environmental Protection Agency)
• Nonpartisan Mercury and Air Toxics Standards tracker (Harvard Environmental & Energy Law Program)
• Official EPA finalizes standards to reduce pollution from fossil-fuel power plants (2024) (Environmental Protection Agency)
• Advocacy How EPA's rollbacks could fuel toxic pollution nationwide (American Lung Association)

The 2024 rule set the first national limits on PFAS in drinking water. The proposal would rescind four of them, arguing the prior agency skipped required steps, and give utilities two more years to meet the two that remain.

Anyone whose utility's problem is GenX, as around Cape Fear in North Carolina, or PFHxS and PFNA rather than PFOA and PFOS would lose federal protection; everyone else waits up to two more years. Utilities and ratepayers avoid near-term treatment costs.

Keeps the 4 parts-per-trillion limits on PFOA and PFOS but lets water systems take until 2031; rescinds the limits on PFHxS, PFNA, GenX and mixtures

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Official Proposed PFAS rescission rule (Environmental Protection Agency)
• Official Proposed PFOA and PFOS compliance extension rule (Environmental Protection Agency)
• Nonpartisan EPA rescinds PFAS ruling, extends compliance deadlines (Water Conditioning & Purification)

Payroll growth averaged about 31,000 jobs a month over the twelve months before August 2026, with federal employment still falling. Average hourly earnings rose 3.1% over the year to July while consumer prices rose 3.4%, so real hourly earnings fell 0.2%.

The typical paycheck buys slightly less than a year ago. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index was 51.7 in August 2026, 11% below a year earlier, with the survey director citing gasoline prices from the Iran conflict. The president fired the BLS commissioner in August 2025 after a weak jobs report, alleging without evidence that the numbers were rigged; no successor has been confirmed, and economists across the spectrum warned that the firing undermines trust in the data used to set Social Security cost-of-living adjustments.

Payrolls +162,000 in August after averaging 31,000 a month over the prior year; unemployment 4.1%

Done by a federal department. Opens the primary source.

• Official The Employment Situation, August 2026 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• Official Real Earnings, July 2026 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• Nonpartisan Surveys of Consumers (University of Michigan)
• Conservative August jobs report: U.S. adds 162,000 positions, unemployment at 4.1% (Fox Business)
• Nonpartisan Trump fires BLS commissioner after weak jobs report (NBC News)
• Conservative Chief Counsel Mulligan makes statement on firing of BLS commissioner (SBA Office of Advocacy)