On March 9, 2023, President Biden released his fiscal year (FY) 2024 budget request outlining the administration’s proposal for federal spending for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2024. The president’s budget requests a total of $6.9 trillion in both mandatory and discretionary federal spending for FY 2024. Of this amount, $4.2 trillion would be in mandatory spending and $1.9 trillion would be in discretionary spending, a nearly 10 percent increase over the FY 2023 topline discretionary spending level. Defense spending would approximately receive a 3 percent increase from FY 2023 for a total of $885 billion in discretionary spending, while nondefense spending would receive a nearly 4% increase from FY 2023 levels for a total of $1.02 trillion in FY 2024.

The president’s budget request proposed a 7 percent increase over current non-defense spending level in addition to tax increases that are designed to lower the national deficit by $3 trillion over the next ten years.

Counties support various provisions in the president’s budget, including priorities for lowering the cost of health care for families, continuing to fund the implementation of critical Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) programs, and supporting safer communities.

The president’s budget request is the first step in the annual appropriations process. Using the budget request as a foundation, the U.S. House and U.S. Senate will begin to develop their own budget resolutions and appropriations packages in the coming weeks and months.

NACo will release a detailed analysis on the provisions of the president’s budget that will outline top county priorities in the coming days.