January 1, EXPOSED: Where Your Billion Tax Dollars to Smithsonian Actually Go

Wyatt’s Take

• The Smithsonian gets over $1 billion of your money every year while pushing woke DEI garbage and distorting American history
• Trump is finally cutting the gravy train and demanding accountability for how museums present our nation’s story
• Top exec pulled in $4.4 million while lecturing that DEI “must be at the center” of everything — that’s your tax dollars at work

The Smithsonian has been feeding at the taxpayer trough to the tune of more than $1 billion every single year. And what do hardworking Americans get for their money? Museums that push far-left ideology and rewrite our history to fit a woke narrative.

The massive institution runs 21 museums, the National Zoo, and stores nearly 157 million objects. That makes it the world’s biggest museum complex. President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts have put the Smithsonian’s federal funding under a microscope as part of his effort to clean house at taxpayer-funded institutions.

Since the White House released a July 2026 report calling out the Smithsonian for pushing DEI and left-wing agendas, the evidence keeps piling up. The latest example? The Smithsonian’s America 250 exhibit showcased roughly three times as many items celebrating liberal figures and causes compared to conservative ones. Critics say it presented a politically slanted version of American history.

Then there’s the training guide disaster. The Smithsonian promoted museum materials that labeled basic concepts like objectivity and merit as part of “white dominant culture.” The institution apologized after Americans raised hell about it, but the damage was done.

Meanwhile, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III has been raking in the big bucks. He said DEI “must be at the center” of museum work while pocketing more than $4.4 million in salary and benefits between 2020 and 2024. Not bad for lecturing regular folks about their supposed privilege.

The White House’s funding cuts come after months of review ordered by Trump. That work resulted in a 162-page report recommending major reforms and executive action to restore balance.

The Smithsonian does receive private donations and grants, but taxpayers have been forking over more than $1 billion every year recently. With that kind of money on the line, how these museums tell America’s story matters.

Budget documents show the Smithsonian kept asking for more and more federal cash during the Biden years. Annual requests jumped from $960 million in fiscal 2019 to a record $1.24 billion in fiscal 2024.

After requesting over $1 billion for fiscal 2025, the Trump administration proposed budgets below that mark for fiscal 2026 and 2027. Those are the first sub-billion-dollar requests since fiscal 2020.

Where does all that money actually go? Most of it pays for keeping the lights on and the doors open.

Of the nearly $960 million federal budget request, a little over $524 million covers day-to-day operations. That includes staff salaries, security, building maintenance, and technology. Another $310 million goes toward museum programs and research. The rest supports building improvements and planning.

Not every museum gets the same slice of the pie, either.

The National Museum of Natural History leads the pack with $51 million in the 2026 funding request. The National Museum of the American Indian comes in second at nearly $35 million. The National Zoo gets about $34 million, while the National Museum of American History receives $27 million.

With close to $1 billion in taxpayer funding at stake, the Smithsonian has turned into ground zero in the battle over who controls America’s historical narrative. The question isn’t just about museums anymore — it’s about whether your tax dollars should bankroll institutions that trash traditional values and rewrite history to fit a progressive agenda.

The Smithsonian Institute did not respond to requests for comment.

Wyatt Matters

When you’re working two jobs to keep your family fed and the government takes a chunk of every paycheck, you deserve to know where that money goes. Billion-dollar budgets for museums that teach kids to be ashamed of America isn’t what our founders had in mind. It’s time these institutions remember they work for us, not the other way around.