Attention, wonks: If something seems to be lacking from the start of your week, perhaps it’s the fact that President Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget request is supposed to go to Capitol Hill today. Except, of course, that it’s not and a delivery date could still be some time off.
The annual request is due on Capitol Hill the first Monday in February. But because of the uncertainties that preceded passage of last month’s “fiscal cliff” deal, the administration was “forced to delay some of its FY 2014 budget preparations, which in turn will delay the budget’s submission to Congress,” acting Office of Management and Budget chief Jeff Zients wrote in a Jan. 11 letter to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. While the White House is working to submit the request “as soon as possible,” Zients said, he did not give a date.
The word is, however, that OMB sent “passbacks” to agencies just last Monday, or about two months behind the normal schedule. By that standard, the budget request would come in at the end of March. An OMB spokeswoman did not respond to an email seeking an update on the administration’s timetable. A budget committee spokesman said today that the rumor mill now puts the submission date at some time in early March.
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The administration’s tardiness in submitting a budget as required by law would be a lot more disconcerting if we had a congress that could actually pass a budget.