For this of us who advocate for specific federal education programs, Joel Packer makes a key point about the current budget talks in this Inside Higher Ed article:

“[The] top-line number is the most important thing to us right now,” said Joel Packer, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, an umbrella lobbying group for education groups. “By the time anyone is down to lobbying on Pell Grants or TRIO or anything else at the program level, you’ve already lost the whole battle because the battle is over the overall pot of money.”