The President does not decide funding for the NPS, Congress does.

have you met congress? they can barely agree on anything so getting more funding for National Parks is an uphill battle.

It’s not like Congress needs to separately pass funding for the NPS. In 2023, the NPS was given a 6% budget increase, even!

Let's say the NSF wanted to give everyone in NSF raises in 2023 to offset inflation from 2022. I believe that would require a 6.5% increase right? I personally believe that the people there deserve more salary than just meeting inflation, though imo.

Whoa no, 100% of their funds don't go to salaries. I'd guess it would be substantially lower than a 6.5% budget increase, even.

Pretending there's no cross-talk or influence across those boundaries is intellectually dishonest.

Seems like you're just nitpicking here. Congress holds the purse strings, but the President and Congress influence each other, and in the cast of the 2016 U.S. election, the president had a lot of influence on the Congress.

A more complete version of your rebuttal could have included the fact that the President typically submits his budget proposal for the year to Congress as an opening bid:

> The executive budget process consists of three main phases: development of the President’s budget proposal, submission and justification of the President’s budget proposal, and execution of enacted annual appropriations and other budgetary legislation.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47092

I just think it's important to remind people whenever possible that the United States President isn't a king, isn't all-powerful, and isn't even a Prime Minister. The role is deliberately separated from the legislative branch, and as such cannot introduce legislation of any form.

However to state that about a President diminishes the reality of what happens on the ground, from party allegiance politik to complete back-room deals. It's about as likely that a President won't sign off on something because it was introduced by the opposing party, than any real conflict with 'values' etc.

That report leaves out the unofficial step 1.5: "Pronouncement by the opposition in Congress that the President's budget is Dead On Arrival".

It's not quite true. They don't want to do all of that work, so they do generally follow the executive branch's requests. But Congress has the ability to cut anything they want -- and to add in items that the department doesn't want. (e.g. https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/congress-funds...)

Thus, the annual ritual of the dead-on-arrival pronouncement. It's especially mandatory when the President and Speaker are of opposing parties.