Trump's 2020 Budget Includes a New 'Planning and Vision Implementation' Agency

This morning, the Trump Administration has released a draft budget proposal that will revolutionize how the federal government relates to the planning efforts of state, regional, and local governments around the country.

According to the text of the draft, the role of the federal government has been largely punitive and incremental, wielding power through hard-to-enforce- regulations or lightly funded grant programs. Most of the federal efforts in support of planning in the country is scattered across several departments and administrations that "pick at the edges" of the practices of planning, according to the draft budget.

To consolidate a federal role for planning, the budget proposes a new Department of Long-Term Planning and Vision Implementation. The Trump budget proposal calls for $5 billion in initial funding to set up the department, with a later $20 billion to launch research and grant funding programs. The new department will be funded by rescinding the tax subsidies granted to the oil industry by the 2017 GOP tax reform bill.

According to the draft budget, the new department will serve four core functions: research and technical assistance, program funding and evaluation, regulation and enforcement, and inter-governmental relations.

Using that variety of approaches, the Department of Long-Term Planning and Vision Implementation will pursue an ambitious agenda focuses on identifying and deploying growth management solutions; finding and implementing progressive funding solutions for infrastructure maintenance; stabilizing economies in cities faced with declining populations; and mitigating and ending environmental impacts resulting from the systems of the built environment.

At the a press briefing on the new budget this morning, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the goal of the new department was implement a deeply rational planning power that would "work to build consensus and remove litigiousness from discord from the planning and development process."

The draft budget proposal mandates a nationwide talent search of planners to fill the new seat on the Cabinet, but the department would also hire engineers, landscape architect, architects, and former politicians. Diversity requirements are also mandated for department hiring practices. "I'm going to be honest, we're going to hire a woman for the job of running this department," Huckabee Sanders told reporters.