The White House delivered its fiscal year 2020 budget to Congress on Monday. As in the past, it couples drastic cuts to domestic spending with a massive boost in military funds. How massive? In a decade, this budget—the largest in federal history—would increase the debt by $7.3 trillion, more than double the $3.2 trillion that the White House projected in its 2018 budget.
In a sense, the White House’s numbers don’t matter. Even when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress, Trump couldn’t pass his wish list; now that Democrats control a majority in the House, his budget is all but dead on arrival. Still, the White House budget will serve as a crucial text as Trump prepares to vigorously engage in the Democratic Party primary to select his challenger.
