Today, Donald Trump unveiled the White House budget for 2019, and it’s packed with cuts to fundamental American institutions from the state department to public broadcasting. But there’s little chance that the proposal will ever become reality.
The president’s budget has always been a “messaging” document, director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters on Monday afternoon. The message to Congress is “you don’t have to spend all of this money,” he said.
Last year, Trump’s proposed 2018 budget also recommended massive cuts to Education, Labor, and State departments. What Congress approved in its spending bill last year bore little similarity to that budget.
The spending caps that Congress recently approved for 2018 also indicate that lawmakers are unlikely to follow Trump’s guidelines as they hash out how to spend the US’s federal budget this year and next.