Most Americans are cynical about politicians, and
with cause. Congress wants to spend and spend until taxes have to go
up, and the only voter recourse is to throw the bums out once in a
while. If only somebody could devise a system with more
institutional checks and balances.
Well, a few far-sighted lawmakers are trying to do
precisely that. The rules governing Congress's annual budget process
for the past 30 years have created a built-in bias toward waste and
ever-larger government. To create the proper incentives for lower
spending and taxes, four Congressmen have proposed the Family Budget
Protection Act, due to be debated in the House as early as this
week.
The federal government's out-of-control deficit
spending since 1974 is actually an historic aberration. Congress
took advantage of President Richard Nixon's post-Watergate weakness
to pass the Congressional Budget Control and Impoundment Act. That
law stripped the executive of the power to "impound"
spending not authorized in the budget, and created a deliberately
cumbersome system that maintains a facade of fiscal discipline but
actually assists legislative log-rolling. The Founders' finely
balanced separation of powers was upset.
Various band-aids have since been tried, with only
temporary success. Gramm-Rudman briefly braked spending growth in
the 1980s. Then so-called pay-as-you-go rules led to higher taxes
rather than cuts in spending. A true spending-cut plan known as A to
Z surfaced in 1994 but never got off the ground. Newt Gingrich's
Contract With America gave Bill Clinton the line-item veto, only to
have the Supreme Court rule it unconstitutional.
Who knows why it took so long, but finally somebody
is going to the root of the problem. GOP Congressmen Chris Cox, Jeb
Hensarling, Paul Ryan and Chris Chocola have catalogued the
distortions introduced in 1974, and their bill would eliminate all
of them.
At the top of the list, annual budget resolutions
would be signed by the President and gain the force of law, rather
than just being a "guideline." Moreover, the framework for
appropriations would be much simpler than today's breakdown by
committees and sub-committees. This would eliminate the back-room
haggling over funding that encourages mutual pork-barreling, by
bringing more of the budget process onto the floor of the two
chambers and into the light of day.
Under the current system, committees routinely
exceed their spending limits with a wink and a nod from arbiters of
the rules. But under a statutory budget, any Member would be
entitled to raise a point of order challenging budget-busting
appropriations, and only a two-thirds majority in both houses could
overcome such an objection. Meanwhile, say good-bye to the Senate's
Byrd Rule requirement that tax cuts lacking two-thirds support have
only a 10-year lifespan; instead entitlements and discretionary
items would sunset once every decade.
Also gone would be the perverse concept of
baselining, under which all proposals are scored against projected
spending increases. This means that a plan to increase a budget item
less than expected is portrayed as a spending "cut" -- yet
another institutional bias toward profligacy.
Some of the worst spending blowouts have occurred
when Congress gets deadlocked and takes the budget down to the wire.
The threat of a government shutdown forces those trying to limit
spending to compromise, lest worthy programs have to close their
doors. The Family Budget Protection Act would allow the government
to keep operating at existing funding levels, but with
across-the-board cuts of 1% for every quarter the budget is delayed.
By taking away the leverage of the tax-and-spenders, the balance of
power might shift back in favor of the taxpayers.
Perhaps most important, the bill would restore some
of the power seized from the executive in 1974. Presidents would
have the power of rescission on line items deemed wasteful, which
would then be sent back to Congress for an expedited override vote.
This preserves the constitutional principle of Congress controlling
the power of the purse, but also creates some adult supervision and
perhaps a deterrent effect on the porkers.
While the bill has more than 100 sponsors in the
House, realistically there's little chance of passing the whole
blueprint this year. So its champions have broken the reform into
nine parts and will offer them as amendments to a bill already
approved by Jim Nussle's Budget Committee. That way each idea will
get more of an airing and with luck a few might even pass.
Sad to say, the reformers are running into
opposition even from fellow Republicans, especially the Old Bulls on
the Appropriations Committees. They're leaning on GOP leaders to
rule out the amendment strategy so they don't have to declare their
spending bias in public. The Bush White House has also been mute,
unlike the Reagan Administration in the deficit-era of the 1980s.
Then Republicans had the excuse of House Democratic
control, but now the runaway spending is on their watch. In their
decades of dominance, Democrats changed Congressional processes to
enhance their policy goals. Republicans have so far failed to do the
same. Unless their talk about smaller government is so much eyewash,
they should embrace this budget reform.
