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Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify today on S. 1434, the Biennial Budgeting Act of 1995, and on similar ideas for creating a two-year budget process. Under S. 1434, a two-year budget cycle would replace the annual cycle now in place.

Beginning on October 1, 1997, most major budgetary action--including the President's budget, the Congressional budget resolution, reconciliation legislation, and appropriation acts--would take place every other year, in the first session of each Congress. The second session would be devoted to Congressional oversight activities and to enacting authorizing legislation. The standard fiscal period would change from a fiscal year that begins October 1 and ends the following September 30 to a fiscal biennium that also would begin on October 1 but would end on September 30 two years later.

My testimony today will make the following general points about biennial budgeting:

• Policymakers act on the budget annually, but most spending or revenue laws cover multiyear periods. Thus, a two-year budget cycle is more significant for its effect on the cycle of budgetary actions than for its effect on the number of years covered by budget laws.
  
  
• Changing to a two-year budget process (as with other purely process changes) would be unlikely to mitigate the broad, underlying disagreement over budget priorities that is the root cause of much recent criticism of the budget process.
  
  
• Instituting a biennial budget process would involve certain trade-offs between competing budgetary and other goals. Those trade-offs suggest that the potential strengths of a two-year budget cycle might be outweighed by its likely drawbacks.
  
  
• Finally, the opportunities for improved Congressional oversight under a biennial budget are likely to be fewer than anticipated.

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