A reader's guide to the Trump budget blueprint

Obviously there is a lot of coverage of the Trump budget. It is a broad document designed in many ways to provoke debate and to put a marker down on what the new administration wants to accomplish.

Below I’ve gathered several stories from various publications looking at different aspects of the budget.

I’ve avoided the big names like the Washington Post and New York Times in favor of publications focused on the business of government and not the ins and outs of how the game is played.

So you won’t find any political intrigue here. Just some information that can help you understand how the budget may impact your customers and your business.

Trump’s 2018 budget plan hacks civilian spending for defense, homeland

Good solid reporting from FCW on the highs and lows of the budget and does a good job of going into the IT and policies implications.

For those agencies facing double-digit budget cuts, OMB says decide your own fates

Technically, it looks like this story came out before the budget was released but it provides good background on the administration’s thinking around the cuts and the defense bump up.

Trump's 'Hard-Power' Budget Cuts Agencies, Shifts Research and Innovation to Private Sector

This take on the budget highlights several specific areas: research spending at Energy, NOAA and NASA; border protection; Veterans Affairs and cyber.

Trump Budget Would Abolish 19 Agencies, Cut Thousands of Federal Jobs

GovExec raises an interesting facet of the Trump budget proposal. The document makes a point that it wants to move away from compliance activities. Instead, it says that agencies will be held accountable for finding ways to reduce costs. But “let managers mange.”

What Trump’s budget blueprint says about federal IT

FedScoop’s coverage takes a similar tack by looking at several policy and management issues.

Trump budget plan slashes agencies, jobs while boosting the Pentagon

The Washington Business Journal’s coverage takes a very local look at the budget impact but that’s not a bad thing at all, especially when the federal government is the largest employer and economic driver in a region.

Trump budget request could mean billions for defense contractors

Instead of focusing on cuts, this Federal News Radio story looks at the potential opportunities in the plus-up of the defense budget.

Contractors and the Trump budget blueprint

And of course, I have to include my own angle, so I focused on who the major contractors are at the agencies facing the deepest cuts.

I’ll repeat what I said in yesterday’s post and what many others have said, This is just the beginning of a process. We’ve already seen the start of the debate. You have those who think the defense budget increase is too small. Others are complaining that the cuts hurt too much.

That will be the debate going forward and eventually we’ll land somewhere.

Two issues that have gotten little attention are the continuing resolution for fiscal 2017 and the raising of the debt limit. The assumption is that Congress will pass a budget that is in effect a continuing resolution for the rest of the fiscal year. The debt limit could be part of that.

The challenge for the Trump administration will be working with the budget hawks in the GOP.

So the journey for the 2018 budget will be bumpy, but I guess they all are.

It’ll be interesting to see if we have a budget in place before the fiscal year begins. Probably not but one can only hope.