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PRESIDENT TRUMP SENT the first budget request of his second term to Republican appropriators in Congress on Friday, exposing new GOP divisions on spending.

Office of Management Budget director Russell Vought outlined the steep cuts Trump seeks for non-defense spending in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine).

"This is a pretty historic effort to deal with the bureaucracy,” Vought told reporters on Friday.

The White House’s “skinny budget” is the administration’s wish list for how they’d like congressional appropriators to proceed, although it's up to lawmakers what goes in the final bill.

Defense spending emerged as an early point of division between congressional Republicans and the White House.

Vought said the White House wants to increase Defense spending by 13 percent, bringing it up to $1.01 trillion. However, the proposal he sent to Congress keeps Defense spending flat at $893 billion with the hopes of boosting it later through a reconciliation bill.

The Hill's Alexander Bolton explains the discrepancy:

"Critics on Capitol Hill argued the Office of Management and Budget plans to meet that target by pulling $119 billion from the pot of money expected to be included for defense in the budget reconciliation bill — the package that will extend the 2017 tax cuts and provide $175 billion for border security."

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the chair of the Armed Services Committee, blasted the proposal as insufficient.

“President Trump successfully campaigned on a Peace Through Strength agenda, but his advisers at the Office of Management and Budget were apparently not listening,” Wicker said in a statement, arguing that “leaving military spending flat” is “a cut in real terms.”

"This budget would decrease President Trump’s military options and his negotiating leverage,” Wicker said.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called the proposal’s reliance on “a one-time influx” from reconciliation spending an “accounting gimmick.”

“They won’t fool Congress,” McConnell said. “The correct response to the most dangerous threats to U.S. interests in decades is not a fifth straight budget request that proposes a real-dollar cut to the U.S. military."

Collins said she has “serious objections” to the proposed defense spending and other parts of the budget, including proposed cuts to a low-income home energy program, student services programs and biomedical research.

“Ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse,” she said in a statement.

MORE BATTLES LIE AHEAD

The divisions underscore the difficult task that lays ahead for GOP leaders in Congress, who must wrap Trump’s agenda into “one big, beautiful bill” that can overcome intraparty divisions and get past narrow majorities in both chambers.

Republicans are trying to cut taxes, lower the deficit and reduce spending, all without opening themselves up to political attacks over cuts to social safety net programs.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee delayed a key vote on its portion of Trump’s legislative priorities this week amid disagreements among Republicans over potential cuts to Medicaid.

The debate pits moderate Republicans in swing districts against conservatives in deep red parts of the country. Democrats are ready to pounce on the issue in the midterm elections.

And Republicans in high-tax states say they won’t vote for any funding bill that doesn’t increase the cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction.

More highlights from Trump's budget proposal:

• It would reduce nondefense discretionary spending by $163 billion, or 22.6 percent, with tens of billions shaved from the National Institutes of Health and Housing and Urban Development.

• It would eliminate some

© The Hill