Tom Temin: And landing teams don’t arrive in gliders or small helicopters, but they arrive at the front door. Tell us more about what happens to landing teams and what they do.

David Berteau: Well, Tom, this is my eighth transition here in Washington. I remember the Carter-Reagan transition as my first, in which I was either present or not, or was an active observer of the process. This is of course unique, but also has some historical elements. This is where you came into play. It’s been delayed. We are now almost mid-December and the election took place on November 5th and was delayed for several reasons, not the least of which was the discussions between the Trump-Vance 2025 Transition Inc., its official transition organization, and the various parts of the federal government, including the General Services Administration. There now seems to be agreement on some issues. Therefore, we expect that the landing teams, the transition teams that are in the middle of the transition process, will arrive at the agencies as early as today or later this week. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t worked until now. These transition teams have been established. The organization was founded last summer and the teams have been hard at work. Individuals were busy making plans about what to do. And one of the most interesting things to me is the degree to which these transition teams will focus on the work of the agencies, because of course the agencies are set up to inform them all and they would like to brag about the initiatives they have underway. And equally important, or perhaps more important: who will do it and in what positions? And that’s really the crucial dynamic of both what and who.

Tom Temin: Right. And there are people coming who aren’t actually going to work in the agencies, but they’re going to inform the people who are going to work for them.

David Berteau: Well, the rules say they can’t represent anyone before the agency, but many of them will end up taking an agency position. So the real ban is lobbying this agency after being part of the transition team. The standard GSA and statutory ban is two years. I believe the Trump transition has what they call its own internal ethics agreement. I haven’t read it, but with certain agencies it may take less time or not at all. But I think one of the things we’ll be paying attention to is who plays on these teams. Are they fighting for positions within the agency or are they really just helping those who will fill those positions get a good overview of what’s going on? In the past it’s been a mix and sometimes you’re more focused on “I want this job” and sometimes you’re more focused on what needs to be done. We’ll be watching this very closely this week and next.

Tom Temin: And by the way, where is the coffee machine?

David Berteau: There is. We have all taken on new jobs in new organizations. It takes a while to figure them out. Some agencies more than others. I would think that the Pentagon is more of a maze, although I also got lost in the Department of Energy building.

Tom Temin: I still remember my first day at work, it was 40 a few years ago, and my boss’s boss came to me early and made the pot of coffee. So I remember.

David Berteau: That was quite a lesson.

Tom Temin: That’s right. He wasn’t too big to make a pot of coffee and serve the new guy. And all of this, David, is against a backdrop of fiscal uncertainty that will dictate what everyone can do post-transition.

David Berteau: Tom, you’d think we’d be familiar with this area by now, right? A continuing resolution that lasts until December. And now we’re faced with the dynamic that either we have a government shutdown at midnight on Friday, a week from now, or we have an extension into 2025? I haven’t seen the bill yet. We know that this is being worked on. We most likely will not see a government shutdown. Although, as you know, at PSC we pay a lot of attention to this. We have a very active Shutdown Resource Center for our members that is now operational. It is advisable to prepare yourself because even though the probability is quite low, the consequences would be high. And it’s not like we haven’t been here before, Tom. I mean, six years ago, in 2018, we were on the path to an omnibus appropriation. And then, in the last few days, just before the Christmas holidays, everything came crashing down. In the end, there was a partial shutdown of nine Cabinet departments and a number of other agencies that spanned more than 30 days. Secure. So don’t take anything for granted here. However, it appears that the agreement is set to be extended into next year. Of course, this creates real problems. But we can talk about that.

Tom Temin: We speak with David Berteau, President and CEO of the Professional Services Council. And I remember when Trump signed his first budget as president and he swore he would never sign another budget like that again, which didn’t quite hold up because budgets are what come from Congress and you either sign them or you don’t. I wonder if he’ll remember it this time. It said, “Maybe I won’t sign it,” which could lead to closure if there is a CR for the new presidency.

David Berteau: You are absolutely right to point this out. And we may not know what the new administration thinks, what President-elect Trump thinks. But we know what history shows, right. And history shows that eight years ago, when President Trump first won, we were moving toward full-year 2017 appropriations being pushed into the following year with the assumption that the new administration might have some influence over it would have. Ultimately, virtually the same bill was passed, but not until April 26th. So the impact was very small and the submission of the FY2018 budget was delayed by the same amount. Seven months after the start of the financial year, the funds for the entire year were available to you. We at PSC would certainly hope that we can avoid that this time. The negative impact of this level of CR is huge across all agencies.

Tom Temin: And the agencies don’t like it either.

David Berteau: No, they don’t. In fact, one of the difficulties is that those responsible for the program do not know exactly how much money they will receive. They don’t know when they will get it. They don’t know what to expect in FY26. Not surprisingly, they will hold back on implementing new initiatives and new programs, some of which are already banned under the CR. But that delays the impact, Tom. For example, if you want to replenish depleted supplies of U.S. weapons to support the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, you would delay replenishment by a significant number of months, or even a year or two or longer, by postponing arms shipments CR and by postponing the FY26 budget. That’s in no one’s interest.

Tom Temin: And finally there’s the other big one, less unknown but still unsigned, and that’s the National Defense Authorization Act. And we knew the scope of both Houses’ bills. Now they are together, but there is no final settlement yet.

David Berteau: Committees released the final bill late Saturday. It was a nice weekend treat for those of us who had to read over 1800 pages as well as almost 700 pages of explanatory material. By the way, I didn’t finish reading it. I still have more to do.

Tom Temin: Well, you just have to look at a few big series, 800, 900, 700.

David Berteau: As you noted, we pay attention to the regulations, not so much the dollars that go into individual programs, but the regulations that affect acquisition and organization and the structures of the way the government does its business operates. However, I think there are two important indicators throughout the NDAA. No. 1 is that both are consistent with the Fiscal Responsibility Act caps, so the caps don’t change, and that bodes well for converting the CR into a full-year appropriation. And it is in line with the government’s demand, which of course also agreed with the upper limits. It’s not always like that, but this time it was like that. So that’s a big positive sign that there’s no effort yet to increase or change overall sales. There is of course the addition. The government requested $115 billion in additional funding. This is not part of the NDAA. It may be part of the CR, but maybe not all of it, maybe modified. So that was a positive sign. The second positive sign is in that top line: the dollars allocated to the various categories tended to be pretty close to the requirement again. This means that agencies and contractors supporting these programs can plan for these numbers. Remember that this is just authorization. We still have to wait and see what the appropriators do. And there was a wide gap between the House and Senate versions of the bill.