Federal Budget FY2019: Spending Priorities and Budget Process
This paper examines the United States federal budget for fiscal year 2019, beginning with an analysis of President Trump's budget message and its core conceptual themes: reducing the national debt, promoting economic growth, strengthening national security, recovering the job market, and improving quality of life. The paper then breaks down actual discretionary and mandatory expenditures for FY2019, comparing them against stated presidential priorities. In the second part, five course materials are evaluated for their relevance to the budget documents, including Public Choice Theory, the budget preparation and cycle stages, performance budgeting, and the roles of key stakeholders such as Congress, the President, and executive agencies.
- Introduction to Federal Spending Categories: Overview of mandatory vs. discretionary federal spending
- President Trump's FY2019 Budget Message: Key themes and political values in Trump's budget message
- Department of Defense in the FY2019 Budget: DoD goals, priorities, and $686 billion budget request
- Discretionary and Mandatory Expenditures for FY2019: Actual spending totals by public policy area
- Alignment of Budget Outlays with Presidential Priorities: How actual outlays matched stated presidential priorities
- Relevance of Course Materials to the Budget Documents: Five course texts applied to federal budget analysis
- Conclusion: Budget process stages and OMB review role
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper anchors all analysis in specific, verifiable budget figures (e.g., $686 billion for DoD, $3.110 trillion in mandatory spending), giving claims concrete evidentiary grounding.
- It cleanly separates the descriptive budget analysis (Part I) from the reflective course-material synthesis (Part II), making the argument easy to follow across two distinct tasks.
- Each course material selection is connected back to the budget documents through explicit linking statements, demonstrating applied understanding rather than summary alone.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied synthesis — taking theoretical frameworks (Public Choice Theory, performance budgeting, the budget cycle model) and mapping them onto real budgetary data. Rather than treating theory and data separately, the author consistently uses one to illuminate the other, showing how presidential spending priorities can be explained by stakeholder self-interest and institutional process constraints.
Structure breakdown
Part I opens with an overview of federal spending categories, then analyzes the FY2019 budget message, examines the Department of Defense as a featured agency, presents discretionary and mandatory expenditure totals, and assesses alignment between outlays and stated priorities. Part II evaluates five course materials in turn — lecture notes on Congress and Public Choice Theory, budget preparation stage notes, two core textbooks, and budget cycle notes — each tied explicitly to the Part I documents. A references section closes the paper.
Introduction to Federal Spending Categories
Federal spending is classified into two major categories: mandatory spending and discretionary spending. During budget preparation, different appropriations are made for each category. In the United States, the federal budget document is delivered well in advance of the creation of the actual federal budget, which takes place many months later during the approval stage — a process in which Congress is directly involved. The budget document contains appropriations for both mandatory and discretionary spending. In addition, it includes a budget message by the President, which is narrative in nature and reflects the specific values inherent within society and the political preferences of a given time.
President Trump's FY2019 Budget Message
For fiscal year 2019, President Trump delivered a budget message in February 2018 that outlined the political preferences and societal values underpinning the budget at the time. The message focused on influencing the upcoming outlays for fiscal year 2019 and was designed to reflect those preferences and values. In articulating the preferred spending focus, President Trump's budget message incorporated several key conceptual ideas.
The first conceptual idea was lowering the national debt. Reducing the national debt was regarded as a crucial component of the FY2019 budget, since the country was facing its highest level of debt since the aftermath of World War II (Office of Management and Budget, 2019). Lessening this debt was considered critical to creating a sustainable fiscal path for current and future generations of Americans.
The second conceptual idea was building a stronger and healthier American economy. Promoting economic growth was viewed as essential to achieving the American dream. As millions of Americans strive for a better future, creating a suitable environment for economic opportunity was considered foundational. The third conceptual idea was the safety and security of the American people, which entailed rebuilding and modernizing the military as well as adjusting national security strategy. The fourth conceptual idea was recovery of the job market, reflecting the Trump Administration's priority of reducing unemployment. This idea was incorporated because millions of Americans had been denied the independence and dignity that comes with the opportunity to work. The fifth conceptual idea was enhancing the quality of life for all hardworking Americans, seen as the foundation for individuals to fulfill their potential and realize their dreams.
These conceptual ideas were constructed to reflect the Trump Administration's political preferences and values. Lowering the national debt was a major concept reflecting President Trump's commitment against wasteful spending. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to balance the federal budget and eliminate wasteful spending (Edwards, 2016). He argued that duplicative programs within federal agencies and misaligned incentives continued to threaten the nation's future. By including this concept in the budget message, President Trump reaffirmed his campaign pledge. The emphasis on promoting economic growth similarly reflected the Administration's commitment to achieving a steady long-term economic growth rate of 3%, supported by reductions in national debt, cuts to wasteful spending, and sweeping tax reforms.
The focus on safety and security reflected the Administration's efforts to modernize the military and adjust national security strategy to confront new political, military, and economic adversaries. This was also a reflection of President Trump's foreign policy goals, particularly in the Middle East. The Administration sought increased expenditure on national security as part of a broader strategic posture (Mischke, 2017). Additionally, this idea encompassed the President's efforts to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Recovery of the job market reflected the Administration's priority of creating millions of jobs to promote economic growth and protect the nation from recession. Enhancing the quality of life of hardworking Americans similarly underscored the Administration's focus on job creation and economic recovery.
Department of Defense in the FY2019 Budget
One of the government entities discussed at length in the FY2019 budget document is the Department of Defense. This agency provides the military forces necessary to prevent war and safeguard the security and safety of the United States (Office of Management and Budget, 2019). For fiscal year 2019, the Trump Administration sought to rebuild and modernize the military to enhance its capability to deter adversaries and preserve peace. The President also prioritized increased investment in the military to protect the American homeland, including the development of a multi-layered missile defense system. The major goals for the agency included expanding the military's competitive space, creating a more lethal force, ensuring the readiness of the armed forces, modernizing the nuclear deterrent, and investing in military hardware. Additional goals included promoting stability and security in South Asia, preventing the resurgence of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, enhancing missile defenses, and sustaining the defense industrial base.
To achieve these goals, the budget requested $686 billion for the Department of Defense — a 13%, or approximately $80 billion, increase over enacted levels for fiscal year 2017. This amount included $597 billion for the base budget and $89 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (Office of Management and Budget, 2019). More than $6.3 billion was requested for the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI). The budget also requested over $70 million in additional resources to improve surface fleet equipment and training, $24 billion for the modernization of nuclear deterrent efforts, and over $84 billion for research and engineering to maintain technical superiority. In addition, more than $8 billion was requested to improve cybersecurity capabilities.
Conclusion
The budget documents demonstrate that the President's budget message and requests are based on guidance received from the various agencies and stakeholders involved in budget preparation. Budget documents from agencies are submitted to the Office of Management and Budget for review before submission to Congress. These documents further illustrate that initially planned amounts are often lower than final budget requests, necessitating negotiations to arrive at suitable funding levels. Together, the FY2019 budget data and the course materials examined in this paper provide a comprehensive picture of how political priorities, stakeholder interests, and institutional processes interact to shape the federal budget.
References
Congressional Budget Office. (2019, November 7). Monthly Budget Review: Summary for Fiscal Year 2019. Retrieved from U.S. Congress website: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55824#section1
Cropf, R. A. (2008). American Public Administration: Public Service for the 21st Century. New York, NY: Pearson/Longman Publishing.
Edwards, C. (2016, November 10). Trump spending cut ideas. Retrieved December 8, 2020, from
Lee, R. D. Jr., Johnson, R. W., & Joyce, P. G. (2013). Public budgeting systems (9th ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett.
Mikesell, J. L. (1999). Fiscal Administration: Analysis and Applications for the Public Sector. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Mischke, J. (2017, December 6). Trump 'declaring war in the Middle East', says top Palestinian diplomat. Politico. Retrieved December 8, 2020, from https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-jerusalem-declaring-war-in-the-middle-east-says-manuel-hassassian-top-palestinian-diplomat/
Office of Management and Budget. (2019). An American Budget – Fiscal Year 2019. Retrieved from The White House website:
Office of Management and Budget. (2020). Historical Tables. Retrieved from The White House website:
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