{"id":26875,"date":"2019-03-11T16:12:09","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T16:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/03\/11\/heres-trump-fy20-budget-its-about-to-get-shredded\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:49:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:49:37","slug":"heres-trump-fy20-budget-its-about-to-get-shredded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/congress\/2019\/03\/11\/heres-trump-fy20-budget-its-about-to-get-shredded\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s Trump\u2019s FY20 budget. It\u2019s about to get shredded."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 While President Donald Trump\u2019s new budget<\/a> Monday reflects White House funding priorities, it has little if any chance of becoming law, as Democrats who control the House strongly disagree with what they consider the bookkeeping gimmickry<\/a> accompanying it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House officially released<\/a> the broad details of its fiscal 2020 budget on March 11. It requests $750 billion for national defense, or $34 billion above the funds enacted for FY19, while it cuts the nondefense side to $563 billion, a 9 percent drop from FY19. For the Defense Department alone, there\u2019s $718 billion, up $33 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn order to preserve peace through strength, the Budget provides for increased end strength, bolsters our global force posture, and invests in the capabilities and domains critical to future conflicts, like space, artificial intelligence, and hypersonics,\u201d Russ Vought, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement Sunday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To stay within the statutory budget caps, the budget funds national defense at the cap level, $576 billion, and shifts $164 billion of the defense spending to an overseas contingency operations, or OCO, fund, which some fiscal hawks will view as an accounting stunt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s already a focal point for disagreement<\/a>. Vought has said it was part of plan to increase defense spending and cut the nondefense side of the budget. But House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., and House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., have called it \u201ca giant OCO gimmick to prop up defense spending.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee and a key voice for increased defense spending on Capitol Hill, acknowledged the White House path here is a dead end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the idea of having this massive OCO is not one that pretty much anyone takes seriously,\u201d he told reporters last week. \u201cThe real negotiations will have to happen on Capitol Hill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congressional Democrats and Republicans \u201care highly motivated\u201d to reach another two-year budget deal and \u201cthe chances are good there will be another negotiated budget outcome,\u201d said Thornberry of Texas. (Absent a budget agreement, the statutory budget caps would mean a $71 billion cut for defense spending and $55 billion from nondefense programs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Appropriators reached a deal last year whereby they paired a Pentagon spending bill with its counterpart for labor, health and human services, education, and related agencies \u2014 a possible way forward now, Thornberry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if the large OCO request would poison those talks, Thornberry advised that lawmakers not “handwring over the massive OCO,\u201d but focus on shoring up military readiness and countering Russia and China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House plans to rely on this strategy next year, too, to get around budget caps. Long-range plans for OCO show it as $156 billion in FY21, and then \u2014 after caps expire \u2014 $20 billion for the next two years, before it drops to $10 billion in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\t