US Capital West Side, by Martin Falbisoner

The Coast Guard has published their FY2024 Budget Overview. It is a 40 page document but easily readable. It is much more than a tabular budget request. In fact you don’t get to the actual budget summary until page 26. It is, after all, an attempt to justify the budget. There is a lot of why the Coast Guard is needed, what we have done for you lately, and what we are going to do in the future. It is pretty impressive.

Bottom line. The budget request is for about $13.45B of which $12.05B is discretionary funding, of which $1.55 is Procurement, Construction, and Improvement (PC&I).

The PC&I budget request is actually down a bit.

Procurement, Construction, and Improvements (in thousands)

• 2021 enacted        2,264,041
• 2022 requested     1,639,100
• 2022 enacted        2,030,100
• 2023 requested     1,654,858
• 2023 enacted      $2,080,100

You can see how Congress has tended to add to the amount requested, which is why I believe several of the items on the Unfunded Priorities List will ultimately be funded.

There is a more complete comparison with the enacted FY 2022 and 2023 budgets on page six of this document.