President Biden’s first full year budget proposal is finally arriving. Normally administrations tout all their new priorities in their first budget. But the Fiscal Year 2022 request is coming when it is least likely to be seen, the Friday before Memorial Day. Perhaps that is because the president has already enacted or proposed $6 trillion in spending – dwarfing a roughly $1.5 trillion annual discretionary spending budget.

Regardless, at Taxpayers for Common Sense we are budget watchdogs, so we’ll be reading and analyzing this multi-volume tome for quite some time to come. But considering we’ve seen the “Skinny Budget” (except they didn’t call it that) and some of the pre-release rollout, this request is starting to remind us  of a barn yard square dance.

Every year, Congress and the administration do a Do Si Do on spending. The administration’s budget identifies something to cut, Congress turns it around and spends more. Other program spending swings the opposite. Congress calls for a dip and the administration reverses course, sometimes behind Congress’s back. Either way, taxpayers lose.

It doesn’t matter if it is Grand Right and Left or Right and Left Grand because both Obama and Trump Administration budgets repeatedly sang the praises of biofuels special interests. Over just a decade, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has unilaterally subsidized special ethanol pumps through three different programs. The Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), Biofuels Infrastructure Partnership (BIP), and Higher Blends Infrastructure Investment Program (HBIIP) spent hundreds of millions on biofuels infrastructure – despite Congressional prohibitions. To fund BIP and HBIIP, USDA, under both Obama and Trump tapped the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) slush fund.  The Do Si Do went on as recently as Earth Day.

If there’s one thing we know about the Democrats, Republicans, and Independents on the Hill, it’s that they all line up to Swing their Partners in the shipbuilding industry. This is definitely a case of the Grand Right and Left agreeing that more shipbuilding contracts must be better. So, the Biden Administration’s plan to build ONE fewer destroyer than was planned by the Trump Administration for Fiscal Year 2022 is likely to be overturned by Congressional action. Remember, there are Members of Congress who believe the infrastructure bill should include $25 billion to upgrade public and private shipyards. We call that a Wrong Way Grand. (More like a Wrong Way Billion, actually.)

Any slowing down of the recent breakneck pace of procuring F-35s is also likely to meet opposition on the Hill. How do we know? Well, those Boys on the Inside at Lockheed Martin, who used to work at the Pentagon or on the Hill, know how to work the system. Think we’re kidding? Check out this information on Lockheed lobbyists that comes from our friends at the Project On Government Oversight. Boys on the Inside, indeed!

On this one we really, really hope our suspicions are wrong. But we do fear Congress will Roll Away to a Half Sashay on ending the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account and try to overturn the president’s decision to end it. The OCO Do Si Do has given the Pentagon an unfair budgetary advantage for years by ensuring the military didn’t have to live within the budget caps. We’ll be keeping a beady eye on Congress on this issue.

Before watching Congress go round and round with climate talking points, the Biden Administration is tapping a shoulder to cut in with some real cuts to fossil fuel subsidies. Following an executive order from January, the President’s Budget requests cutting supports for fossil fuels across all federal agencies. This includes a proposal to cut tax breaks for oil, gas, and coal companies. Congress is likely to ignore the tap and continue dancing to please entrenched interests. Taxpayers would be better served if appropriators learned a new step or two and saved billions by cutting back fossil fuel handouts.

Finally, the Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works budget hosts a perennial and predictable dance. The president feigns cuts, Congress feigns outrage, and the final bill spends more than last year. This Pass Thru (a fake cut), Separate (but not really) And Go Home (with loads of project cash) dance should be booted off the floor.

 Washington should replace the antiquated Potomac square dance with something more contemporary. Taxpayers deserve a budget request that is about governing, setting priorities, and leading the country into fiscal strength. With the deficit projected to be over $2 trillion this year, the same old budgetary song and dance ain’t gonna cut it.