With another potential government shutdown looming at the end of the month, Congress has unveiled a bipartisan partial funding package. If passed, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) would both see their budgets hold steady at $207 million—despite the proposed budget from President Donald Trump calling for the elimination of both agencies.

Overall, the three bills, known as a “minibus,” include some spending cuts, but not to the levels proposed by Trump. The House of Representatives will vote on the package this afternoon. If it passes there, it would then move on to the Senate. The government is still recovering from last year’s 43-day shutdown, a record for the nation.

“Passing these bills will help ensure that Congress, not President Trump and [Office of Management and Budget Director] Russ Vought, decides how taxpayer dollars are spent—by once again providing hundreds of detailed spending directives and reasserting congressional control over these incredibly important spending decisions,” Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told Government Executive.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities building in Washington, D.C. Photo: Matt McClain / The Washington Post via Getty Images.

The NEA and NEH have been in Trump’s crosshairs since 2017, when he first announced proposals to eliminate their budgets (which he renewed each year). Both agencies survived Trump’s first term relatively unscathed, thanks largely to bipartisan support in Congress.

Trump 2.0 has proved trickier to navigate. In May, his administration abruptly informed many grant recipients of the immediate withdrawal and termination of their funding—a move that has been fought with some success, but left arts organizations reeling.

The NEA also eliminated its Challenge America grants, aimed at underserved communities, in favor of funding proposals celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of United State of America. The Department of Government Efficiency put some 80 percent of NEH staff on immediate administrative leave, advocating that those positions be permanently cut. And Trump earmarked $17 million in funding from both the NEA and NEH to build his National Garden of American Heroes.

In July, the House Appropriations Interior Subcommittee’s appropriations bill proposal for the 2026 fiscal year recommended 35 percent cuts—or $72 million each—to the NEA and NEH budgets, which would have been their smallest budgets since 2007, at $135 million. The bill also included language about “supporting the Trump administration and mandate of the American people,” while prohibiting using agency funds to “promote or advance critical race theory” or to support “diversity, equity, and inclusion training or implementation.”

The NEA and NEH were founded in 1965, and have issued billions of dollars in grants in the ensuing decades.