# President's Budget Request The president's annual spending proposal, assembled by the [[Office of Management and Budget]] and submitted to Congress — statutorily due the **first Monday in February**, though it frequently slips (the FY2027 request landed April 3, 2026). It is the **opening bid**, not law: Congress is free to ignore it, and usually substantially does. Its political value is as a **statement of priorities** — the clearest single document of what an administration wants the government to be. ## What's in it - Top-line outlays, revenues, and deficit projections over a ten-year window. - Detailed funding requests for every agency and program. - Policy proposals (tax changes, new programs, cuts) with [[Baseline and Scoring]] budget effects. - The supporting **Historical Tables** and **Analytical Perspectives** volumes — the authoritative data source for past actuals (function and agency). ## Why it rarely becomes the budget Because Congress holds the [[Power of the Purse]], the request is a wish list. The actual numbers emerge from the [[Appropriations Process]] and any [[Reconciliation]] bill. The **gap between request and enactment** is the recurring analytical payoff: where did the administration want to cut, and did Congress let it? ## The RWKB angle The request is where an administration's fiscal ideology shows undisguised, before congressional bargaining sands it down. The [[Federal Budget FY2027 Request]] — a ~28% defense increase paid for by a 10% non-defense cut, with extra defense money hidden in a reconciliation supplemental — is [[Project 2025]] rendered in dollars. Tracking each year's request against the enacted result is the core exercise of the [[Budget Hub]]. ## Related - [[Office of Management and Budget]] · [[Federal Budget Process]] · [[Appropriations Process]] - [[Federal Budget FY2027 Request]] · [[Baseline and Scoring]] · [[Budget Hub]]