As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump promised to end the tight budget restrictions that were put in place on the military after a failure to reach a bipartisan spending agreement in 2013.
So how did the major spending bill enacted in February 2018 affect this promise? The process Trump was targeting -- known as sequestration -- remains on the books, but at least for 2018 and 2019, it has effectively been neutered.
Sequestration refresher
Originally, sequestration was designed to be a draconian last resort to push representatives from the two parties to come to an agreement. The sequester would force across-the-board budget cuts in excess of $1 trillion over a decade -- a prospect seemingly too toxic for lawmakers to contemplate. But when the negotiations between the parties failed, the cuts were enacted by default.
On two occasions -- 2013 and 2015 -- Congress and President Barack Obama agreed to raise the "caps" on spending above the sequestration level, paid for by offsetting cuts elsewhere. But those higher caps expired, setting the stage for the spending showdown of February 2018.
We should note that while Trump only pledged to end the sequester for defense spending, another major category of federal spending was also affected by sequestration — "discretionary" spending for a whole host of non-defense areas, from energy to diplomacy.
February spending deal
February's spending deal was passed with the support of a bipartisan coalition, though with many detractors in both parties. So what does it do?
On the one hand, "the budget deal does not technically end the sequester," said Todd Harrison, the director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The underlying law, the Budget Control Act, is still in place, and the budget caps for fiscal years 2020 and 2021 remain at their original level."
That said, the spending agreement increases the level of the budget caps for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 by such a large amount that a sequester "is much less likely to occur," Harrison said.
Specifically, the budget deal allows defense spending as high as $629 billion in 2018 -- a lot higher than the sequestration level of $549 billion. And it would allow $647 billion in 2019, much higher than the $562 billion level that would have been permitted under sequestration.
Effectively, then, while sequestration remains on the books, it is now effectively moot, at least for 2018 and 2019. Beyond that, Congress would have to act again to lift sequestration going forward.
"The budget deal did more than fully repeal the sequester for fiscal year 2018 and fiscal year 2019," said Tyler Evilsizer, research manager for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "It increased funding for defense above the levels where it would have been if the sequester had never occurred."
Also noteworthy: These numbers exclude war-related spending, which wasn't subject to the previous regime of budget caps.
Ultimately, the defense sequester remains on the books, but it has been rendered toothless by the budget deal. For the next two years at least, defense spending is set to increase substantially. So, Trump accomplished his goal without technically doing it the way he said he would, though it only holds for two years. We rate this a Compromise.