The following is TCS president Steve Ellis’ statement on the FY2022 President’s Budget Request: 

Just in time for summer, the budgetary rubber is finally hitting the road. 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, after lunch on the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend. Perhaps that is because most of the reported nearly $6 trillion in this proposal is a re-tread of the administration’s infrastructure and families plans – dwarfing a roughly $1.5 trillion annual discretionary spending budget.

While Congress gets wrapped around the axle on trillions of dollars in other spending proposals, the $1.5 trillion in annual discretionary spending will definitely get enacted in some form. And that means lawmakers can’t afford to get distracted by shiny object spending like infrastructure,  but must dig into the details of what this new administration is proposing. It’s easy to look at this “paltry” spending proposal as an afterthought, but this is what actually funds the government for day-to-day work the country relies on.

There have been few details since the skinny budget came out. But as we saw in that snippet, virtually every agency gets a boost. Trillion-dollar annual deficits are the new norm. Total government debt reaches record levels. Rosy economic assumptions disguise potential true cost. Offsets that are unlikely to ever see legislative light of day are baked into the equation.

Every President’s Budget Request is aspirational. It is meant to set a tone and a bar to measure lawmakers’ budgetary response. This budget endorses an unprecedented experiment in deficit financing and largely avoids making the tough choices to right our fiscal ship.

Taxpayers for Common Sense is digging into the details.

Follow our rolling analysis of the budget here.