The Obama administration’s fiscal 2014 budget is widely expected to arrive late on Capitol Hill, possibly not until sometime in March, primarily as a result of uncertainty created by fiscal cliff negotiations.
The White House and Office of Management and Budget have not said when the budget will be released. By law, the spending proposal is due the first Monday in February, which will be Feb. 4. Fiscal 2014 will begin Oct. 1.
“I think everyone that I’ve talked to, everyone’s expecting March,” said Patrick Lester, federal fiscal policy director at the Center for Effective Government, formerly called OMB Watch.
One Republican congressional aide guessed that the earliest the budget would be released would be Feb. 11 but said Feb. 18 was more likely.
A Pentagon official said that as of the end of last week, departments and agencies had not yet been told by the White House how much money they will have to work with in their fiscal 2014 budgets, a process known as “passback.” That information is usually conveyed in late November, after the administration has reviewed the agencies’ budget requests.
By this point in the budgeting process, the administration has typically communicated to departments the changes it has decided to make in their budget requests, and the agencies have responded by appealing decisions they do not like or by trying to work out a compromise with the OMB. Agencies begin submitting budget data to the OMB after passback.
MORE: Obama’s Budget Is Running Late : Roll Call News.