New President to face clear-cut choices.

• Author: McKinley, Craig R.
• Position: President's Perspective

* Labor Day always metaphorically signifies the end of the summer, and in those years divisible by four, it marks the final dash of presidential campaigns to election day. After the conventions of the two major parties in late July, which made Donald Trump the Republican Party nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the Democratic Party nominee, the campaigns of the two major presidential contenders will begin in earnest.

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Presidential campaigns are a uniquely American experience, one that has grown longer over time, and in the modern era seems to kick off right after the delivery of a new president's inaugural address. But whoever emerges victorious in November will face a number of vexing problems including a federal budget process that has become totally chaotic, federal funding levels for defense that are well below acknowledged requirements and political resistance to taking fundamental steps that would narrow the gap between recognized needs and funding allocations.

To elaborate, the process by which the federal government crafts the annual budget has largely come to a halt. The structured process of budget formulation and preparation, known on Capital Hill as "regular order," has largely vanished. The process by which the budget committees establish allocations, the armed services committees establish authorizations, and the appropriations committees actually appropriate the funds, has completely broken down. It has been replaced by a process where each of these steps has been hijacked by various political groups seeking to add additional complexity to an already complicated process by injecting debates about debt limits and numerous other policy issues. This shift to "irregular order" is what led us to the unfortunate Budget Control Act of 2011, which established discretionary spending caps.

Over the past 200 years, Congress has established a reasonable process for producing a budget, which is one of its most fundamental responsibilities. It founded several offices to assist with the details of budget formulation and to provide reasoned, non-partisan advice. It has established a schedule ending Oct. 1, which allows more than enough time to finish the task. Congress just needs to respect and follow its own process. This will have to be addressed by the new chief executive--a role of the president.

On the defense side, while we have committed the armed forces to constant conflict against dangerous...