Nearly all of the $17.5 billion the White House is seeking for Golden Dome in this year’s budget would come from reconciliation funding, an Office of Management and Budget spokesperson confirmed to Defense One. Congress uses reconciliation, a special budgetary process which requires a simple majority to pass, to quickly enact mandatory spending legislation. Less than $400 million for the missile defense program would come from the budget’s baseline discretionary funds.

“The budget supports development of game-changing space-based missile defense sensors and interceptors, kinetic and non-kinetic missile defeat and defense capabilities and enabling technologies for a layered, next-generation homeland missile defense system,” the White House said in budget documents on Friday, adding that the administration is continuing “innovative program management and acquisition approaches to prudently employ taxpayer dollars.” 

Defense experts fear Golden Dome’s continued reliance on Congressionally-funded reconciliation is a bad sign for the administration’s hallmark defense project. President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill signed into law this past summer pushed $23 billion in mandatory funds towards the project. But Todd Harrison, an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow and defense budget expert, said reconciliation funding isn’t a guarantee in future budgets. 

“The whole program is on unstable footing,” Harrison said. “If they have not been able to move the main funding lines into the base budget, because reconciliation is highly unlikely to continue beyond FY27, then where does all the Golden Dome funding go in FY28?”

Overall, $350 billion of the $1.5 trillion 2027 defense budget request would come from reconciliation funds, according to the White House’s budget documents. The White House’s budget projections from 2028 through 2036 don’t showcase any additional mandatory funding, which would reduce the total defense spending.

Harrison said he was not surprised the Golden Dome-related reconciliation funds decreased from last year’s $23 billion to a little more than $17 billion in the proposed budget request.

“Golden Dome still has plenty of money sitting around waiting to be used,” Harrison said. “So it's not too surprising that they're requesting a lesser amount.”

In January, lawmakers criticized the Defense Department for failing to provide budgetary details and justifications for the $23 billion in Golden Dome-related reconciliation funds. A Pentagon planning document obtained by Defense One last month showed that numerous Golden Dome-related funds had yet to be allocated. 

Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, Trump’s Golden Dome czar, told attendees at the McAleese Defense Programs Conference last month that he’s provided details to Congress on the program’s progress and that reconciliation funds are freed up.

“I have personally briefed all six committees numerous times on everything that we're doing on Golden Dome, to include the detailed costs of what Golden Dome is going to cost,” Guetlein said. “All of the funding for Golden Dome under reconciliation has flowed, and we've got a very close partnership with OMB and [the National Security Council] on execution of those funds.”

Gutelin also announced then that the program’s projected price tag had jumped $10 billion to $185 billion. Defense experts believe those costs will continue to skyrocket. 

The budget documents released Friday also include a mention that Trump’s Golden Dome won’t be a surefire solution against domestic missile threats, a reality that physicists have acknowledged.

"The initiative's scope is to develop and mature a versatile, multi-layered defense system. The goal is to not create a 'perfect' defense, but to provide an increasingly effective shield that enhances the U.S. capability to deter attacks, disincentivize arms racing, and negotiate from a position of strength,” the budget document reads. “For Fiscal Year 2027, the program will balance investments in next-generation technologies with the strengthening of existing foundational capabilities to improve near-term readiness and build for the future."

While Trump has not explicitly claimed the system would be flawless, he described it in near-absolute terms from the Oval Office last May as being capable of intercepting a wide-variety of missiles from anywhere in the world with an interception rate of "very close to 100 percent."

The administration's 2027 budget proposal outlines a plan to combine I&A with DHS' Management Directorate, Office of Situational Awareness, and Office of the Executive Secretary—essentially, folding the department’s intelligence arm into a consolidated headquarters office alongside management and executive functions.

Administration documents released on Friday said the plan would save $53 million and “would yield efficiencies and would enable better communication throughout the department and with external partners.”

But the plan requires approval from Congress, which last year rejected administration plans to slash the office from about 1,000 workers to 275, Nextgov/FCW first reported last July. That proposal drew pushback from law-enforcement organizations and Jewish groups that long relied on the agency to disseminate timely intelligence about threats to state, local, tribal and territorial communities. One international organization privately warned Congress that the proposed cuts would create “dangerous intelligence gaps.”

The downsizing was put on hold just days later, but DHS soon began a more gradual effort to shrink the office. By late last year, the office was down to about 500 employees. It’s possible that more people have since departed.

In November, the House Intelligence Committee considered adding a provision to the annual intelligence community authorization bill to curtail the size and scope of I&A. The provision would have barred the office from gathering and analyzing intelligence, effectively turning I&A into a clearinghouse for intelligence findings produced elsewhere and stripping it of standard spy-agency collection authorities.

I&A also helps manage a series of fusion centers around the country that help share intelligence among federal agencies and state and local law enforcement.

The move proposed in the FY27 budget would likely draw questions from lawmakers about the independence of DHS’s primary intelligence arm, how threat information is shared with state and local partners, and concerns about proper oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol.

For years, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have argued that I&A needs reform.

Democrats have faulted the office for overstepping its domestic surveillance authorities and for failing to protect civil liberties, especially during the 2020 racial justice protests. Republicans, meanwhile, have accused it of drifting into partisanship and falling short in providing timely intelligence to state and local partners, particularly on border threats.

A 2022 DHS oversight report assessed that I&A had detected online threats ahead of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot but failed to share that information in time to be useful.

The Intelligence and Analysis unit holds a unique place in the federal oversight landscape. As one of 18 intelligence agencies managed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, it falls within the purview of the Senate and House Intelligence committees. But its status as a DHS component also subjects it to oversight from the Homeland Security panels in both chambers.

It’s not clear whether the proposed consolidation would formally reduce the number of U.S. intelligence agencies statutorily managed under ODNI. Nextgov/FCW has asked ODNI and DHS spokespeople for comment.

I&A was born as part of the creation of the Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to coordinate intelligence on homeland threats and expand information sharing with state and local authorities.

Its placement in DHS has put it at the center of recurring jurisdictional tensions with the FBI, which drives much of the nation’s domestic intelligence, counterterrorism and counterintelligence work under the Justice Department. Researchers have long argued the division of labor creates a fragmented architecture that splits operational responsibilities across agencies whose missions too often overlap.