Hearing of the Committee on Rules
"Biennial Budgeting: A Tool for Improving Government Fiscal Management and Oversight"
Thank you, Chairman Dreier, for holding this important hearing and for your leadership on this issue. I support a biennial budget and appropriations process and that’s why I support passage of H. Res. 396 calling for enactment of a biennial budget process. Earlier this year I introduced H.R. 493, the Biennial Budgeting and Appropriations Act, to establish biennial budgeting for the federal government. The same legislation is pending in the other body, offered by Senator Pete Domenici, Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
Why is this an improvement over the current process? I believe that by adopting such a measure we would remove the political infighting that so often occurs during budget negotiations. What I would like to see is the First Session of Congress being dedicated to passing a budget and the 13 appropriations bills. The second session would be dedicated to authorization bills, which tend to be bypassed, to government oversight, and to other important legislative priorities.
The Second Session would also be reserved for any true emergency spending. The current way of doing business often leads to a stalemate where politics often prevails.
As we all know, the budget process often results in gridlock. In the past we have witnessed train wrecks, government shutdowns, and continuing resolutions. The greatest deliberative body in the history of the world, the U.S. Congress, cannot manage the federal purse string each year without acrimonious wrangling. The political gamesmanship exercised by the President does not help the matter.
The President has just submitted his fiscal year 2001 budget proposal and Congress will begin to consider its annual fiscal blueprint. Need I remind you, this is an election year, and we can expect a great deal of turmoil as the budget is used for partisan purposes. There has to be a better way to plan and spend an almost $2 trillion budget.
Although establishing spending levels in Washington will always be contentious, there is strong agreement on adopting a two-year, or biennial, budget process. President Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, and other congressional leaders have endorsed this streamlined system. Recently, 245 members of the House joined in expressing their support for biennial budgeting.
Under a biennial budget the President would submit a two-year budget proposal and Congress would approve a two-year budget resolution during the first session of Congress. Congress then would consider and pass 13 two-year appropriation bills for the President's signature. The second session of Congress would be devoted to overseeing government programs, considering authorization bills, and working on other legislative priorities. Imagine, members of the House and Senate carefully considering legislative proposals and addressing major issues and emergencies at a deliberate and reasoned pace. The annual budget process has become a tool of political theatrics yielding poor policies. Using my proposal, spending decisions would be made in the year prior to an election year, putting policy ahead of politics. It is no secret that pork projects abound in election years.
Annual budgeting also encourages using accounting gimmickry and wishful thinking. Lawmakers frequently adopt budgets with ambitious out-year spending restrictions; restrictions that rarely materialize. It is easy to promise to make tough decisions next year, beyond the reach of the current budget. Biennial budgeting doubles the period for specific spending levels and holds decision makers more accountable.
A two-year process would increase efficiency throughout the federal government. Federal program managers produce volumes of information each year supporting their budgets and justifying increases. Two-year budgeting also would reduce the time devoted to paperwork and would provide these managers a two-year funding commitment. Whether their budgets are increased or reduced, they would have the needed information to maximize planning and efficiency.
Twenty-one states today have biennial budgets and two use a mixed-cycle process. These successes could be reproduced on the federal level. Since 1950, Congress has only twice met the fiscal year deadline for completion of all 13 individual appropriation bills. A two-year budget cycle will introduce greater stability to the funding process, decrease political manipulation of federal spending, and enhance the efficiency of Congress and federal agencies. It would also increase the public's confidence in the ability of the federal government to manage its responsibilities. That is the mark of good government.