Remarks as prepared for delivery Thank you to the Brookings Institution for hosting today’s event and thank you to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget for agreeing to co-sponsor as well. Scholars at Brookings and CRFB, as well as the National Budgeting Roundtable, have been part of a driving force behind an effort to reform the Congressional budget process. I want to thank you for lending your time, your expertise, and your passion to this issue. We meet today less than a month after ...
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As prepared for delivery Good morning. For over a year, the House Budget Committee has been engaged in an initiative called Restoring the Trust for All Generations. Today’s hearing is the fourth in a series of hearings this committee has held to advance this initiative. Restoring the Trust is an effort to raise awareness among both our colleagues in Congress and, more importantly, the American people we represent – about the serious fiscal and policy challenges facing our nation’s health, retire...
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As prepared for delivery Good morning. The title of this hearing is the “Growing Risks to the Budget and the Economy.” Regardless of ones’ political posture – there are clearly some warning signs before us. In many ways the current budget and the current economy are in fact risks unto each other. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provides all of us with some sobering information – demonstrating that policymakers have ample evidence and information revealing just how severe the risks are now ...
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As prepared for delivery Welcome back and thank you to everyone for joining us this morning. One of the core responsibilities of Congress is oversight. It’s our job to keep a watchful eye over government departments and agencies to ensure their activities are fairly, efficiently, and effectively executed. In order to competently exercise its oversight authority, Congress has instituted certain instruments and agencies to aid in that endeavor – perhaps none with as large an impact as the Congress...
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As prepared for delivery Today’s hearing is the third in a series of hearings begun last summer when this committee embarked on a new initiative called Restoring the Trust for All Generations. This is an effort to raise awareness about the fiscal and policy challenges inherent in America’s health, retirement, and economic security programs. By focusing attention on these matters, we aim to build a broad consensus among our colleagues and the country at large around the need to do something to sa...
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As prepared for delivery Yesterday’s hearing focused on a series of different potential alternative budgeting methodologies. Today, we are focusing on a specific area of interest – regulatory budgeting. This is an area apart from the different styles of budgeting that would directly affect how this committee would allocate discretionary and mandatory spending. However, there is a direct connection between the financial impact of regulations on our economy – on American innovators, individuals, a...
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As Prepared for Delivery This committee has spent its past several hearings examining the failures of the current Congressional budget process and the need to overhaul the system and rewrite the rules under which we budget. We have focused attention on the core challenges we face and the fundamental goals we ought to have in attempting to improve the way Congress approaches its fiscal responsibilities. Today, we will begin to shift our attention to what sort of specific approach or approaches c...
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As Prepared for Delivery Over the past several weeks, this committee has held hearings focused on different aspects of our effort to reform the Congressional budget process. Budget enforcement – the subject of today’s hearing – has been a part of the discussion from the very beginning. And the reason is obvious. A budget that is not enforced – is not effective. Moreover, the budget process Congress ultimately adopts will only be successful if Congress is willing to enforce the budgets it approve...
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As Prepared for Delivery The focus of today’s hearing is on the need for Congress to establish fiscal goals to drive discipline and accountability in the budgeting process. In short, it is about building consensus. Policymakers and the public at large need to reach consensus on a standard or set of standards against which we will measure our level of fiscal responsibility. Without such consensus, we lack a sound foundation upon which to build an effective budget process. We will be destined to ...
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As Prepared for Delivery Today’s hearing marks an informal kickoff to a renewed effort by this committee to reform the Congressional budget process. This is not this committee’s first look at this topic. We began to examine the broader contours of a reform effort through two hearings we held last year. Nevertheless, we are beginning what will be a series of hearings over the coming weeks. The aim is to have these discussions inform the drafting of legislation to enact a true overhaul of the 1974...
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