This article is part of our President’s FY2024 Budget Request Coverage. Visit our Rolling Analysis Page for more.

President Biden’s budget request seeks more than $7.4 billion for the Civil Works portion of the Army Corps of Engineers. The budget, however, undersells the amount of future spending Congress will ultimately direct toward U.S. waterways, ports, and flood control projects.

At $7.410 billion, the request is an 11 percent increase from the $6.6 billion the president requested in his FY2023 budget. But $7.4 billion would be a nearly 9 percent reduction from the $8.3 billion Congress appropriated for Civil Works projects in the 2023 Omnibus. This reduction will not happen.

There is a well-established Kabuki dance budgeting ritual involving this agency that is in charge of constructing projects facilitating commercial navigation, flood and storm damage reduction, as well as environmental restoration on most of our nation’s major, and not-so-major, waterways. The White House lowballs funding levels enabling the administration to budget that cash for other priorities. Congress makes a theatric show of disapproval. When it comes time to actually produce the spending bills, Congress bumps the spending up and the president signs the bill. Glad handing and back slapping ensue. It’s a well-worn ritual undertaken by every administration in our 28 year existence.

Through Fiscal Year 2020 the gulf between what previous administrations (both Obama and Trump) requested and Congress ultimately approved grew exponentially. In the FY2020 Omnibus, Congress appropriated nearly $3 billion (58.5%) more than the president had requested. This dropped to, umm, “only” a $1.8 billion (30%) difference in the final year of the Trump presidency.

The Biden Administration appears to be continuing this ritual.  In the end, with a Congress that always spends more than the president requests, inflation driving up costs, and a continued push for increased infrastructure spending, you can bet this trend continues.