2026 Budget: US Must Invest $150B or Decline

With the 2026 midterms over, the real work of the federal budget begins. This document is the tangible blueprint for the country’s future. My take is simple: the United States has to stop dithering and start aggressively funding our long-term economic resilience and strategic technological superiority. This means facing down some powerful interests and making real cuts elsewhere, because the alternative is to just manage our own decline.

For years, federal spending has been stuck in a reactive loop, patching holes from the last crisis instead of building for the next one. We’ve just kicked the can down the road, especially on infrastructure and basic research, and it has left us dangerously exposed. Just look at our physical plant: the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2025 Report Card gave our national infrastructure a C-minus. A C-minus. According to AP News, experts consistently warn about how our dilapidated roads and ancient energy grid are a drag on the economy. Any budget that doesn’t tackle this head-on with serious money is simply malpractice.

The usual pushback is the fear of debt, and yes, fiscal prudence matters. But the cost of doing nothing here is far higher than the cost of smart investment. Letting our infrastructure rot means you pay more later in repairs, you burn more fuel in traffic jams, and your whole economy gets less competitive. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has published stacks of studies demonstrating the positive link between public infrastructure investment and long-term GDP growth. This is about investing in the foundational assets that generate future prosperity for decades to come, like a new port facility, not chasing the temporary sugar high of a tax cut. The budget must draw a very clear line between consumption and investment.

Rebuilding the Foundations: Infrastructure and Education

My top priority for the 2026 federal budget is a massive, sustained commitment to infrastructure renewal. This covers everything from our digital backbone to our energy grids and water systems. We need to allocate a floor of $150 billion annually for the next five years, specifically for projects with clear, measurable economic returns. This money should flow through a mix of federal grants and matching programs, giving state and local governments skin in the game. For example, we could expand the Department of Transportation’s Federal-Aid Highway Program but with a sharp focus on smart infrastructure projects integrating sensors and data to optimize traffic and predict maintenance. The whole point is to build for the future with resilience and efficiency, not just to repair what’s already broken.

You can’t have new infrastructure without people who know how to build and run it, which is why a critical investment in education and workforce development must go with it. The economy is changing fast, and our workforce needs to be ready for the jobs of tomorrow. This requires a 15% increase in federal funding for vocational training, community colleges, and STEM initiatives. We could expand the Pell Grant program, for instance, to make it more accessible for students pursuing degrees in high-demand fields. We also have to get educational institutions and private industry talking to each other to ensure curricula line up with what employers actually need. Sure, education is constitutionally a state responsibility, but an under-educated populace is a national economic disaster. No country can compete on the global stage if its workforce isn’t prepared.

Securing the Future: Technology and National Security

The second pillar of a responsible budget is a vigorous commitment to advanced research and development (R&D) and cybersecurity. The United States has historically led the world in innovation, but we’re at risk of losing that lead. A Pew Research Center report from March 2025 showed that several nations are now outpacing the US in R&D spending as a percentage of GDP, particularly in artificial intelligence and biotechnology. To reverse this, we must increase federal R&D funding by at least 20% over 2025 levels, funneling it through agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The idea is to create the environment where breakthrough innovations can happen, replicating the old DARPA model for the 21st century’s grand challenges.

Paired with this R&D push is the non-negotiable need for a huge increase in cybersecurity spending. The digital threats we face are escalating daily, with our critical infrastructure, government, and businesses under constant attack. A serious portion of the defense budget, I’d say 10% of the current total, should be reallocated to bolster these digital defenses. That means investing in advanced threat detection, funding scholarships and training to build a strong cybersecurity workforce, and forcing better intelligence-sharing between government and the private sector. It’s a hard truth, but a cyberattack could cripple our economy more effectively than a traditional military strike. This is economic and societal defense, and pretending we can rely on yesterday’s security paradigms is a fantasy.

Fiscal Discipline and Strategic Reallocation

Finally, none of these goals are possible without a renewed commitment to fiscal discipline and strategic reallocation. You can’t just print your way to prosperity, and the national debt is a genuine long-term problem. This post-midterm budget has to include clear, enforceable rules to control debt. One idea is a statutory cap on new entitlement spending that isn’t paired with a dedicated revenue stream. That would force some honest conversations about sustainability. It’s also long past time for a “zero-based budgeting” review where every federal program has to justify its existence annually. I guarantee you’d find significant savings that could be moved to our actual priorities.

I can already hear the pushback: “We can’t cut here, we can’t cut there.” Every agency and program has its advocates. But the nation has finite resources, and continuing to fund programs that deliver marginal returns while underinvesting in the future is a dereliction of duty. Are some agricultural subsidies, for instance, still aligned with modern economic realities, or are they just politically popular? A rigorous, evidence-based review, free of political favors, is essential. The military budget, as large as it is, shouldn’t be immune to scrutiny either. Are we investing in the right capabilities for the threats of 2026, or are we still building for past conflicts? That 10% reallocation I mentioned from conventional defense to cybersecurity and climate mitigation is a difficult but necessary strategic shift. It’s about strengthening our defenses where our vulnerability is most acute.

The 2026 post-midterm budget is a national turning point. We have to stop the cycle of reactive, short-sighted spending and embrace a proactive strategy for long-term economic strength and technological leadership. This requires bold investment in infrastructure, education, advanced R&D, and cybersecurity, all funded through disciplined reallocation and a new commitment to fiscal sense. The choices made now will define our country’s path for a long time to come.