FY20 Budget or Re-election Platform? Both.

Russ Vought, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, was ready to give his first official press conference. The soft-spoken policy wonk with the thick-rimmed glasses stepped to the podium in the White House briefing room Monday and wished the press corps “Happy Budget Day.”

The occasion was the presentation of the president’s fiscal 2020 budget blueprint, an aspirational document that proposes $4.7 trillion in spending and recommends $2.7 trillion in cuts.

“Our national debt nearly doubled under the previous administration and now stands at more than $22 trillion,” Vought told reporters. This budget, he continued, “shows that we can return to fiscal sanity without halting our economic resurgence while continuing to invest in critical priorities.”

The White House calls it “A Budget for a Better America.” Congress calls it dead on arrival. This is because everyone in Washington knows the document is essentially a wish list, and the unveiling is part of a longstanding D.C. ritual whereby opposition party lawmakers dismiss presidential budgets as quickly as administrations deliver them.

This was not, however, an empty exercise in wonkery. Vought was outlining the president’s 2020 re-election platform as much as he was laying out Trump spending priorities. Congress may axe the document entirely in the coming months. At least on paper, though, voters will know where he stands when they enter the voting booth.