The Trump budget omits any figures on entitlement or mandatory spending, interest payments, revenues, or deficits.President Trump released his so-called “skinny” budget today, and it contains substantially less detail than “skinny” budgets of the last five administrations going back to Ronald Reagan. The Trump budget includes only estimates for fiscal 2018 and only for its proposed changes to discretionary programs (those funded through the annual appropriations process) — even though discretionary programs make up less than one-third of the federal budget. The Trump budget omits any figures on entitlement or mandatory spending (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, federal retirement, or SNAP), interest payments, revenues, or deficits.

In contrast, while all five previous administrations released initial budgets that displayed information in very different ways, they all provided a more complete picture of how their policies affected total spending, revenues, and deficits (or surpluses), and showed them for several years beyond the budget year. All five, for instance, included estimates of total spending, revenue, and deficits (or surpluses) for the coming fiscal year and at least the three subsequent years, and the two most recent administrations (Bush and Obama) covered ten years. Four of the five sorted total spending into different categories and for multiple years — for instance, showing total spending by each federal agency; by budget functions (e.g., health, education, or defense); or by program areas.

All five included details of the budgetary effects of their proposals for entitlement programs, and four of the five provided these details over multiple years. All five included details of the budgetary effects of their proposals on revenue, showing these estimates over multiple years. All five included information on funding for discretionary programs, showing the funding level, the proposed changes, or both, as does the Trump skinny budget; however, four of the five provided these estimates for multiple years, while the Trump provides these figures for only one year. Finally, all five provided information about the economic assumptions they used in preparing these budget estimates, including assumptions about the growth rate of the economy, inflation, and interest rates.

Despite providing far more detail than the Trump Administration, all five previous ones released their budgets by the end of February — and the Trump team had roughly the same amount of time between the confirmation of its budget director (Mick Mulvaney) and the release of its budget.

Appendix: Terms Used In the Table