Budget Process Reform

I firmly believe repairing Washington’s broken budget process is essential for getting our fiscal house in order.  We all know the federal budget process is broken.  Washington stumbles from budget crisis to budget crisis with little to no oversight on how the government spends your hard-earned tax money.

The current process encourages those who want to increase government spending, and its size and scope.  The result is a mounting burden of debt that is hampering economic growth and hurting Granite State job creators.  The result: more kicking the can down the road for future generations to resolve.

As a member of the House Budget Committee, my colleagues and I have put forth ten budget process reform bills to change things.  These bills would create new tools to cut wasteful spending while strengthening caps on borrowing and spending.  They would enhance oversight while curbing practices that assume automatic spending increases. They would increase transparency by forcing government to be more fully accountable for all bills that you, the taxpayer, are forced to pay.

Here is some of the legislation I’m involved with to fix this broken system:

Spending Control

The Legally Binding Budget Act

• Gives the budget the force of law by converting it from a concurrent to a joint resolution, which requires the President’s signature. Upon a presidential veto, the joint resolution automatically reverts to a concurrent resolution.

The Spending Control Act (Sponsor of this legislation)

• Establishes binding limitations on federal spending and deficits – all enforced by a sequester of no more than 4 percent of programs – within each category if the program is growing faster than inflation.

The Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescission Act

• Provides for the expedited consideration by Congress of specific requests by the President to reduce discretionary spending in appropriations legislation.
• This legsilation has passed the House of Representatives and awaits action in the U.S. Senate.  You can click here to read more about that vote.

Enhanced Oversight

The Biennial Budgeting and Enhanced Oversight Act (Sponsor of this legislation)

• Establishes a biennial budgeting cycle where Congress adopts a budget resolution in the first session of Congress (i.e., odd-numbered years) and considers authorization legislation in the second session, providing greater opportunities for review of government spending.

The Baseline Reform Act

• Reforms the budget “baseline” to remove automatic inflation increases in discretionary accounts, and to require a comparison to the previous year’s spending levels.
• The Baseline Reform Act was passed by the House Budget Committee and the full House of Representatives.  It awaits action by the U.S. Senate.  You can read more about the vote by clicking here.

The Government Shutdown Prevention Act

• If Congress fails to enact appropriations bills by the beginning of the fiscal year (Oct. 1), provides automatic authority to fund programs at a slightly reduced rate from the previous year’s level.

The Review Every Dollar Act

• Requires periodic sunset reviews and reauthorization of all federal programs to ensure the programs perform an appropriate role, and are operating effectively.
• Requires all transfers from the general fund to the Highway Trust Fund to be offset or counted as new spending.
• Removes all direct spending provisions from Pell Grants and moves all funding to the discretionary spending category.
• Requires any new rule or regulation promulgated by the administration that includes new spending to be explicitly funded by Congress before such regulations take effect.
• Provides a mechanism through which Members can devote savings from spending bills to deficit reduction.

Full Transparency

The Balancing our Obligations for the Long Term Act

• Caps total spending over the long term to reduce the burden of government to no more than 20 percent of the economy by gradually reducing spending.
• Requires Congress to review long-term budget trends every five years and provides a fast-track legislative process to put federal spending on a sustainable path.
• Authorizes reconciliation of long-term savings (beyond the current limit of the budget resolution’s typical 10-year window, up to 75 years) in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
• Requires CBO long-term estimates beyond the 10-year window. - Requires the President’s budget to extend beyond the 10-year window.
• Strengthens the statutory requirement directing the President to submit legislation to save Medicare if the general fund subsidy to the program exceeds 45 percent of the program’s costs.
• Requires GAO and OMB to report annually on the federal government’s unfunded obligations.

The Budget and Accounting Transparency Act

• Reforms the Credit Reform Act to incorporate Fair Value accounting principles.
• Recognizes the budgetary impact of the GSEs by formally bringing the entities on-budget.
• Brings the Postal Service on-budget.
• Requires a CBO & OMB study on offsetting receipts/collections/revenues.
• Requires all federal agencies make public the budgetary justification materials prepared in support of their requests for taxpayer dollars.
• The Budget and Accounting Transparency Act has passed the House Budget Committee.  Click here to learn more about the vote.
• The Budget and Accounting Transparency Act passed the full House of Representatives. It now awaits action by the U.S. Senate. Click here to learn more about that vote.

The Pro-Growth Budgeting Act

• Requires CBO to provide an assessment of the macroeconomic impact of major legislation.
• The Pro-Growth Budgeting Act has passed through the House Budget Committee and the full House of Representatives. You can read more about the vote by clicking here.