In its initial proposal outlining the Administration’s budget goals for FY2018, the White House is seeking an increase of $54 billion to $603 billion overall for defense programs. To maintain the overall topline budget number, the Administration is seeking offsets in non-defense related programs.
Federal Relations continues to monitor developments on this front.
The Trump White House will send today to the federal agencies its draft FY2018 budget proposal that will seek increases for defense and veterans’ programs while looking to cut domestic programs. The proposal being shared with the agencies today will only address the discretionary programs — those that must be funded through the annual appropriations process—and will not touch the mandatory programs, like Social Security and Medicare. Those issues will be handled in the larger budget request that will be released later in March.
The call for increases in defense and veterans’ programs, as well as funding for a new border wall, without raising the overall level of discretionary spending would force sizable cuts to non-defense discretionary (NDD) programs. Under the current law, the overall FY2018 discretionary spending level is set at $1.064 trillion, with $549 billion for defense and $515.4 billion for NDD programs. Democrats have insisted on “parity” with respect to budget increases, arguing that increases to defense must be tied to increases in NDD programs, and are likely to raise serious objections to this budget outline. As noted above, a budget framework containing proposals on mandatory programs will be released in March.
Federal Relations will provide further details as they become available.
The Trump Administration is aiming to release its FY 2018 budget outline on March 14, an unnamed White House official told CQ over the weekend. The budget outline is not expected to be a comprehensive budget, but instead a “skinny” skeleton of what the Administration intends the full budget to look like. Some are expressing doubt that the Administration could make this soft deadline, given the new director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, was confirmed and sworn in just last week.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) was confirmed by the Senate Thursday as Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. John McCain (R-AZ) joined Democrats in opposing Mulvaney’s nomination.
By a vote of 52-48, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s nominee for OMB Director, has cleared a procedural vote. This move would allow a final vote on Mulvaney Thursday evening.