The Obama administration has ordered all executive branch departments and agencies except the Pentagon to cut their budget requests for fiscal 2014 by 5 percent below the 2014 level proposed in the 2013 budget, as part of a broader deficit reduction plan the White House says is needed even if Congress is able to avert the sequesters mandated by the Budget Control Act. The order, which targets “lower-priority spending,” is detailed in a May 18 memo from Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to department and agency heads. The memo calls for agencies to re
