Reactions to presidential budget proposals generally run along predictable party lines: the party occupying the White House lauds it as a sober and responsible reflection of the nation’s priorities, while the opposition party insists it will kill babies and bring about the general downfall of the nation. We might expect this political grandstanding to grow more intense in the Trump era, and so it has: the administration’s new 2019 budget proposal has been met with howls of disapproval from many corners.
We alternatively are told Trump’s budget fights repeals Obamacare, mandates a border wall, swells defense spending, privatizes space travel, “reforms” student loans and food stamps, fights the opioid crisis, creates huge deficits, and somehow manages to expand federal expenditures 13% while simultaneously slashing critical programs. It’s a starvation budget! It’s a bloated pork-barrel giveaway! It even threatens Meals on Wheels! The average American, tribally inclined to believe one side’s hype over the other, hears all of these things and wonders whether they’re true.
But they are not true. Trump’s budget, like all presidential budgets, is a meaningless document full of trial balloons that serve current political purposes rather than determining future spending priorities. Budgets have no bearing on future actions by Congress or the president, they don’t change substantive law in any area, and they don’t create deterministic deficits in the future. They are political documents, and should be understood as such.
A few points bear mentioning:
- Presidents have no constitutional role in the budget process, other than signing or vetoing a budget bill crafted by Congress alone.
Unfortunately, the lawless and relentless rise of presidential power during the 20th century did not spare the budget process. But the Constitution plainly and unequivocally grants sole authority over the power of the purse to Congress in Article I, section 9, clause 7. Presidents are charged with executing the spending priorities of Congress, not setting them in the Oval Office.
The more modern “tradition” whereby administrations propose an annual budget to Congress in early February is entirely extra-constitutional: the legally dubious Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 created the Office of Management and Budget under the auspices of the president, when it fact such an office should fall under congressional control (as the later-created Congressional Budget Office does). It is a mistake to further entrench the harmful idea that presidents have any say whatsoever over the federal budget.
- Budgets have nothing to do with taxes and spending.
Congress funds all of the federal departments, agencies, and programs through the annual appropriations process. Technically there are 12 annual appropriations bills, one for each Congressional subcommittee with jurisdiction over particular funding areas (e.g. defense, transportation, agriculture). House and Senate committees each pass their version, then in theory they hammer out an agreement known as a conference report that both bodies pass and send to the President. This process has broken down mightily in the last 15 years, because the poisoned political atmosphere makes agreement on 12 huge bills (all full of tucked-away language from swarming but friendly lobbyists) nearly impossible. So in recent years Congress has passed overarching “omnibus” bills that fund everything, or packaged “minibus” bills that combine two or more appropriations bills.
But nobody gives a moment’s thought to the already-passed fiscal year budget during the summer appropriations process. The budget is like an old newspaper, a story that is utterly irrelevant to the appropriations process. The only numbers that matters are last year’s appropriations spending; those numbers form the “baseline” from which the committees begin-- not those suggested in the White House budget. The priorities and initiatives outlined in the administration’s budget proposal are never considered for a moment.
Tax bills similarly make their way through committees in the House and Senate, though they must originate in the House. Unlike appropriations bill, tax legislation is not particular to a single fiscal year, and remains in effect unless later revoked, amended, or subject to sunset periods. Tax proposals and revenue projections contained in the budget again are irrelevant and never considered by Congress.
So how much Congress spends each year, and how much the Treasury collects in taxes, is wholly a function of the appropriations and tax bills passed by Congress (again, save for a presidential veto).
- Budgets have no binding effect on Congress or the president in future years.
All of the spending and revenue projections contained in the administration’s budget will be utterly forgotten in a month or two. Even if passed into law, the budget bill has no legally binding effect whatsoever on future years, future Congresses, or future presidents. Nor does it have any institutional effect. Nobody in Congress ever says. “Gee, remember that budget we passed back in 2010? We projected spending only $15 billion every year for NASA. I guess we’d better stick to it since we promised... Sorry NASA.”
Nobody knows, or can know what Congress will spend down the road-- just look at “emergency supplemental” bills passed during the Bush and Obama administrations to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They were passed without regard to presidential budgets, and completely apart from the existing appropriations/omnibus/minibus bills already voted on. What exactly is the point of a budget, if Congress simply can pass additional spending bills whenever it chooses? So when the New York Times breathlessly announces Trump’s budget creates huge deficits in the future or increases poverty, it displays a profound ignorance of the two points above. The administration has no budget, and it doesn’t ultimately control spending and tax bills.
We all would benefit from jettisoning the presidential budget charade. It only creates more meaningless political theater, and diverts our attention from what really matters: the total amount Congress spends and the total amount it takes from the private economy in taxes.
