Every President elected since the passage of the Congressional Budget Act has submitted a budget to Congress between January 2nd and February 6th. Incoming President Donald Trump is hinting he may not submit a budget as is customary. 

Every in-coming president since the Congressional Budget Act went into effect in the mid-1970s has submitted a budget. In many years, those budgets (or amendments to the outgoing president’s final budget) were submitted months after the first-Monday-in-February deadline and were truncated versions of the usual multi-volume presentation. But, a fiscal plan with the new president’s priorities was consistently released for over 4 decades.

The Forbes article goes on to explain with some reasons why Trump would go this way. There are two key reasons, and both have to do with Trump avoiding criticism. We know much he hates criticism.

First, there wouldn’t be any hearings in the House or Senate that are designed to question the administration over their projections, as well as their priorities related to taxation and spending.

Secondly, the new administration wouldn’t be required to publish a table showing the inflated GDP estimates they’re relying on to sell the public on their tax plan.

Paul Ryan indicated before the election if Trump won, Republicans would utilize the reconciliation process with the budget to be able to pass Donald Trump’s sweeping tax cut plan.

The reconciliation process is what Democrats used in 2010 to get Obamacare through and signed into law. I don’t necessarily have an issue with Trump and Congressional Republicans doing something similar to get Trump’s tax plan passed. What I object to is taking the next step in budget trickery so that criticism by Democrats can be avoided.

Donald Trump is the one who rode to primary wins and an election win via the tailwind of being an “outsider” who is going to clean up the corruption in Washington DC. By not submitting a budget, it allows him to avoid the kind of scrutiny he claims he welcomed during his campaign.