The White House today sent President Obama’s FY16 budget request to Congress beginning the annual budget and appropriations process to set spending for the federal fiscal year that begins on October 1. Unlike in the recent past, the President’s budget arrived to Capitol Hill on time this year. Overall, the budget proposes eliminating sequestration and boosting total discretionary spending levels by 7 percent. Among the initiatives that the budget supports are many of the priorities that the President announced in his State of the Union address a few weeks ago, including the Precision Medicine Initiative that would build a large biobank of genetic information and provide a boost of $215 million to research aimed at advancing personalized medicine, and the Community College Initiative that would partner with states to support two years of community college for free to students maintaining a 2.5 GPA. The President’s budget is non-binding on the Congress and is not expected to gain much traction in a Republican-controlled Congress. However, the budget does provide a sense of the President’s priorities for the final years of his term and, to a degree, draws lines of political distinctions as the next presidential election cycle begins. Below is a high-level overview of the President’s budget request and a snapshot of the appropriations landscape for the year ahead.

The President’s Budget Request

The President’s FY16 budget offers a $4 trillion blueprint for the federal government. It advances the main themes he laid out in his State of the Union address, with specific spending and policy changes. Income inequality and the middle class are a particular focus of the tax proposals included in the budget, which expand targeted tax breaks like the American Opportunity Tax Credit to assist families with the cost of higher education. These changes are paid for with new revenues from higher income individuals and some corporations. These revenues also offset the elimination of the sequester. The top-line discretionary request of $1.09 trillion dollars does not adhere to the spending caps put in place by sequester and includes about $74 billion dollars more in total discretionary investments than current law allows. The budget proposal includes $530 billion in non-defense discretionary spending – effectively eliminating the sequester entirely for non-defense accounts – and $561 billion dollars in defense spending, an increase of $37 billion dollars and $38 billion dollars over the levels set by sequestration, respectively. All told, the proposed higher spending levels allow for the President to request a 5.5 percent increase in R&D funding, including a 3 percent bump for basic research.

Following is a top-line summary of the President’s requested funding levels for accounts of interest, where detailed in the budget. (Note: for purposes of comparison, we also include FY10 levels, which is the nominal peak for some agencies given the multiple rounds of budget cuts that occurred subsequently.)

National Institutes of Health

FY15: $30.1 billion

FY16 Request: $31.3 billion (+4%)

FY10: $31.0 billion

Defense 6.1 Basic Research

FY15: $2.28 billion

FY16 Request: $2.09 billion (-8.3%)

FY10: $1.82 billion

Defense 6.2 Applied Research

FY15: $4.65 billion

FY16 Request: $4.71 billion (+1.4%)

FY10: $5.04 billion

National Science Foundation

FY15: $7.34 billion

FY16 Request: $7.72 billion (+5.1%)

FY10: $6.88 billion

Department of Energy Office of Science

FY15: $5.07 billion

FY16 Request: $5.34 billion (+5.3%)

FY10: $4.90 billion

ARPA-E

FY15: $280.0 million

FY16 Request: $325.0 million (+16.1%)

FY10: n/a

NASA

FY15: $18.01 billion

FY16 Request: $18.53 (+2.9)

FY10: $18.72 billion

Pell Grant (max grant)

FY15: $5850

FY16 Request: $5915 (+1.1%)

FY10: $5555

Federal Work Study

FY15: $990,000

FY16 Request: $990,000 (flat)

FY10: $980,500

Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant

FY15: $733.0 million

FY16 Request: $733.0 million (flat)

FY10: $757.5 million

International Education and Foreign Language Studies

FY15: $76.0 million

FY16 Request: $72.2 million (+5.3%)

FY10: $126.0 million

National Endowment for the Humanities

FY15: $146.0 million

FY16 Request: $147.9 million (+1.3%)

FY10: $167.5 million

Looking Ahead

The new House and Senate budget chairs will now quickly get to work on writing their own plans. GOP budget writers have said they will release a plan that will eliminate the deficit and bring the federal government’s finances into balance within 10 years, unlike the President’s budget which projects the deficit continuing at 3 percent of GDP. Former Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) wrote last year’s House budget with the same ambitious goal. In order to achieve it, he proposed eliminating some entitlement programs, while substantially reforming others, such as Pell. Because his budget also included tax cuts, Ryan’s plan proposed deep spending cuts that went beyond sequestration. We will not know how new House Budget chairs Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) or Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) intend to achieve balance until they introduce their respective plans, probably in March.

Contact

Please be in touch with Suzanne Day or Jon Groteboer in the Washington office with any questions or concerns: (202) 863-1292.