Evercore ISI: “Trump Budget Not Happening”
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Feb 28, 2017
In a note by Evercore ISI’s Terry Haines and Ernie Tedeschi, the analyst duo pours cold water on Trumps’ budget proposal before it has been even formalized and confidently predicts that “Trump budget not happening” adding that the most likely outcome is that “Congress will modestly hike defense and non-defense spending.”
Below is a summary of their thinking:
President Trump’s budget will not be submitted to Congress for a couple of weeks but already the speculation about it has begun with press stories about deep cuts to domestic spending used to fund increases in defense spending. Investors should understand that any president’s budget submission is inherently a political document; that Congress is not bound to follow it; and that this Congress will not follow it. We continue to see the likely result of the federal budget process as a continuation of the modest increases in both defense and nondefense discretionary spending agreed to on a bipartisan basis over the past four years. Any increase in defense spending is likely to be small and matched by similar small increases in nondefense spending.
Presidents are bound by law to submit an annual budget request. This is supposed to come in early February but new presidents always are given leeway. The Trump budget will come in a couple of weeks: the current and usual step in the process is to provide draft budget numbers to federal departments and agencies for views and pushback. When the budget is submitted, Congress holds hearings, develops its own budget numbers, and ultimately agrees on a budget by approving a budget resolution. This budget resolution guides Congress in its appropriations process and in the reconciling of changes in law to the budget (in the FY 2018 case, tax reform). Importantly, the president does not sign the budget resolution as it is not a law.
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