Congress Proposes Steep Cuts to CISA

Nearly $270M Cut From CISA Despite Mounting Foreign Cyberthreats Chris Riotta (@chrisriotta) • January 21, 2026

Congress is proposing spending cuts to the U.S. cyber defense agency, slashing hundreds of millions of dollars from programs tasked with federal threat hunting, analyzing hostile activity across federal networks and supporting frontline cyber operations.

In a bicameral funding bill published Tuesday, lawmakers also undid some of the cutbacks instituted over the first year of the Trump administration, including by earmarking $40 million for election security and requiring the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency to participate with the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

Congress further admonished the executive branch that CISA must have a workforce capable of executing its duties. "CISA shall not reduce staffing in such a way that it lacks sufficient staff to effectively carry out its statutory missions," legislators wrote in a statement ...