WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump's budget landed on Capitol Hill the way White House fiscal proposals traditionally do _ with a thud.
It wasn't just Democrats who dismissed the blueprint as a "nightmare" scenario, with its beefed up military spending and tax breaks for the wealthy, but Republicans also winced at steep domestic program cuts and rosy growth projections that may not achieve its promise of balancing deficits.
Administration budgets are largely viewed by Congress as a statements of a president's priorities, rather than serious governing documents, and the lackluster reception to Trump's 2018 blueprint was no different than others in recent years. Barack Obama's budgets rarely got a single Democratic vote.
Lawmakers have just a few months to ward off another shutdown crisis and Trump's budget, which he dubbed "The New Foundation for American Greatness," remains far from the deal Congress will need to strike later this year to keep government running.
"Clearly, Congress will take that budget and then work on our own budget, which is the case every single year," said House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) "But at least we now have common objectives."
Trump's budget aligns with many conservative priorities, particularly its promise to bring deficit spending to an end and achieve a balanced budget within 10 years.
That comes as no surprise after Trump, who confounded Republicans on the campaign trail for straying from conservative principles, tapped as his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, a former South Carolina tea party congressman.
Mulvaney helped orchestrate the 16-day government shutdown in 2013 over spending priorities, and his budget approach may prove too severe for even fellow Republicans.
Democrats seized the opportunity link the White House to the most orthodox flank of the GOP, and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) lambasted the budget as conservative "fantasy."
"Trump's budget exists somewhere over the rainbow where the dreams of Mick Mulvaney, Paul Ryan and the Koch brothers really do come true," Schumer said, referring to the billionaire industrialists who fund conservative campaigns.
"What is going on in the White House with this kind of budget?" Schumer asked. "How many people in America want to cut cancer research? President Trump evidently does."
Congress faces its own budget problems this year, as the Republican majority blew past the deadline for crafting a 2018 blueprint.
Republicans are trying to use the budget process to achieve their broader goals � repealing the Affordable Care Act, passing tax reform � but have become tangled in their own infighting on policy differences.
Democrats are likely to submit an alternative to Trump later this year after having declined to do so at times with Obama in the White House.
At some point, though, the aspirational documents will need to be put aside for an actual funding bill to keep government from shutting down once the 2018 fiscal year starts on Oct. 1.
That is likely to require a compromise between Republicans and Democrats over spending levels and priorities.
"Ultimately we will have to come up with a budget ourselves," said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican.
