We’re not going to parse the FY’16 budget request submitted by the President last week.  There are more evaluations on the substance of that budget than anyone can consume healthily.  Instead, it’s important to understand whether any of the major provisions of the budget proposal will ever make to reality.  Spoiler alert:  No.  For contractors this means that Congress is likely to make its priorities for spending, especially in DOD, far more known than in the recent past.  While power is always balanced somewhere between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, it seldom rests in the middle.  This year, it slides further toward the Capitol.  As such, DOD, national security, and other traditional Republican favorites will end up making substantial changes in actual appropriated dollars than the proposal released last week.  Similarly, ambitious Administration priorities that have no bi-partisan support, and there are many, have no chance for legislative passage.  Better to see those specifics for what they are:  Markers to which any 2016 Presidential candidate might be held accountable.  Companies hoping to forecast their FY’16 federal business opportunities will have to wait till September, at least, before the situation becomes less cloudy.