Doesn't plan to leave: Trump administration prepares budget for 2022

The White House is urging federal agencies to begin implementing plans for Trump's February budget, the latest sign of defiance to election results. The Washington Post.

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The directive is the latest example of Trump aides acting as if he won the election and will not leave office on Jan. 20, the day President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in.

The White House's Budget Office has instructed federal agencies to continue preparing the Trump administration's budget proposal for next fiscal year, according to several administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to share details of private conversations.

The White House budget proposal is usually released in February, that is, at least two weeks after President Trump is due to leave the White House. He lost the election on November 3 to former Vice President Joe Biden, who is due to be sworn in on January 20, although Trump refused to acknowledge the results.

The decision to go ahead with Trump's fiscal 2022 budget has irritated and surprised several staff members, given Biden's victory, as well as the fact that the new Biden administration is expected to present its budget plan to Congress early next year.

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Assertiveness in budget planning, even though Trump will not be in power to propose a budget in February, is part of the pattern of behavior of White House officials and senior politicians who tried to reject the election results.

On Monday, November 9, the Trump administration also instructed senior government officials not to cooperate with Biden's transition team, sparking potential litigation.

When asked if the budget process for the 2022 fiscal year is proceeding as planned, a representative of the White House's budget department replied: "Of course."

One White House official said administration officials believed that the administrative and budgetary director Russ Vout was hostile to the transfer of power. Vout, a former employee of the Conservative Heritage Foundation, has solidified his reputation as one of Trump's most loyal cabinet officials since taking over largely budgetary control in 2018.

The annual budget proposal is a major White House event that outlines the administration's spending and tax proposals. Although Congress later rejects many of the proposals, this serves as an important marker for the start of financial negotiations. These budgets include input from all federal agencies and are often released during congressional hearings in February. The budget proposal being developed by the Trump administration will cover spending that begins between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022, the period after Trump leaves office.

Two administration officials involved in the new budget process said it was very unusual for the White House not to adjust budget planning based on election results.

“They pretend nothing happened,” one official said. “We all have to pretend it’s normal and do all this work when we know we’ll just have to throw it away.”

The person spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal planning.

The White House's budget proposal was largely a symbolic document, especially under Trump. Democrats and Republicans in Congress often ignore the administration's political priorities in favor of their own.

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Chantelle Boyens, a former senior official in the Office of Management and Budget under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, said outgoing administrations usually work on budget aspects after an election defeat. But Boyens said the work usually changes dramatically as White House officials admit that political priorities for their budgets will not be realized.

“The preparations underway now are not surprising given the administration's position on the election results,” said Boyens, now a policy fellow at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. “The moment you know the election results, it would be pointless to continue to formulate policy recommendations for the new budget that will be put together by the outgoing administration.”

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