Bass Supports Line-Item Veto, Other Reforms to Increase Transparency, Accountability in Budget Process PDF Print
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February 8, 2012

WASHINGTON – Congressman Charles F. Bass (NH-02) today supported bipartisan legislation to give the president line-item veto authority with Congressional approval. The Expedited Line-Item Veto Act (H.R. 3521) will give the president the authority to cancel any amount of discretionary spending with the approval of Congress through an automatic up-or-down vote. The legislation also requires all savings to be applied toward deficit reduction.

Bass also supported legislation (the Budget and Accounting Transparency Act, H.R. 3581) to reform the way certain costs are calculated, such as requiring fair value accounting for federal credit programs.

Bass said:

"There's no question that we must take serious action to address the out-of-control federal spending that has plagued Washington, but unless we address the budget process itself and put an end to the budget gimmicks and trickery used to inflate spending, we won't achieve this goal. The four budget process reform bills that the House passed within the last two weeks will help us be careful stewards of taxpayers' dollars.\

"Hardworking taxpayers expect Congress to do its job and craft a responsible, honest, and accountable budget for our nation. The House is prepared to do its job again this year and craft a spending blueprint for our nation; it's unfortunate that Senate Leadership doesn't share that same concern for American families."

Last week, the House also passed, with Bass' support, two budget process reform bills that will bring more transparency and accuracy to budget projections and baselines:

The Pro-Growth Budget Act (H.R. 3582) will require the Congressional Budget Office to provide lawmakers with a macroeconomic analysis of any legislation that has a budgetary impact of more than .25 percent of current GDP, giving Congress more information about the effects that policy initiatives will have on economic growth.

The Baseline Reform Act (H.R. 3578) removes the pro-spending bias in the baseline that policymakers use as a starting point in federal budgeting by bringing more accountability to the budget process and requiring the baseline to show the previous year's funding levels. Currently, the baseline assumes an automatic increase for inflation each year in the discretionary budget.

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