During a speech on the floor of the United States Senate, Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, outlined his plans to begin fixing the broken budget and appropriations process in the new Congress.

• Change the names of the Budget and Appropriations Committees to better reflect each committee’s function. 

• Switch to a biennial government funding system, where six appropriations bills would be considered in the first session of a Congress and six would be considered in the second. 

• Require that any new mandatory programs should be self-financed or offset by eliminating an existing program.

• A full evaluation of the concepts and procedures that underlie Congress’s budgeting process and make it too easy to spend.

“I come to floor today to talk about the need to reform our broken budget and appropriations process and to lay out a few ideas I have for how to do so,” Enzi said. “Each of the above suggestions would improve our process and help us control spending and meet our constitutional obligations. I plan to pursue them and others in the next Congress and look forward to working with my colleagues to fix our broken budget and appropriations process.”

Click here for more information on Senator Enzi’s budget proposals.

Click here for to read Enzi’s full speech.