Part of the “Effective Budgeting” series.
Healthy budgeting gives legislators many reasons to finish on time. “On time” means before Congress leaves for the August recess. The White House and agencies could prepare better for the new fiscal year. Appropriators could rescind and reappropriate surplus funds well before expiration, further clarifying spending expectations for the White House.
Members of all committees would be involved. Minority party members could contribute substantively to policymaking. Majority party members would still have the numbers to prevail in most cases, and they would face fewer partisan attacks from now-included minority party members. Leaders could let other members resolve most questions.
A good start. The first step toward a successful process is getting CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook, the president’s budget request, and the national security strategy as required by law. This common set of facts and White House recommendations gives Congress the foundation for subsequent deliberation.
Reasonable targets. Previously-established, consensus budget targets in statute, such as a path to deficits of 3% of GDP, can defuse arguments about the goal. Resolving arguments about annually appropriated levels have been a perennial difficulty since at least 2011. Some members may still press the issue, but most will agree to just do what they said they were going to do. That’s easiest when targets satisfy demands for fiscal responsibility as well as stable and predictable policymaking in the near term.
Automatic enforcement. Sequestration’s “goofy meat ax” has failed to enforce discretionary caps and Statutory PAYGO. A next-generation approach could use incremental adjustments to a broader range of statutory parameters. Members could be more confident in the integrity of targets.
Holistic management. When Congress looks at all spending and revenue together, tradeoffs become real. Incompatible maximalist demands give way to bargaining.
In addition, if Congress fails to pass a budget resolution by April 15, the Comprehensive Congressional Budget Act would instruct the Budget Committee chairs to deem baseline spending levels for committees. A budget resolution breakdown doesn’t stop the process; status quo allocations step in, which keeps majority ambitions realistic.
Committee opportunities. Allocations, whether from the budget resolution or deemed, give the committees the space to manage their programs within guardrails. Members can pursue priorities within the portfolios they know best and where their relationships are strongest. Sometimes, that pursuit will happen through the chair’s mark – the base bill – and sometimes by building bipartisan coalitions for amendments to the mark. Competition between both paths can draw members closer together and cultivate creative solutions to policy challenges. Budget Committee enforcing guardrails reinforces peer pressure to optimize within constraints.
Floor amendments. Rules Committee practices for floor amendments can seem like a “black box” to many members. The uncertainty reduces the expected benefits from building coalitions on amendments. Investment suffers in cross-partisan relationships.
A rule-of-law amendment process could set minimum standards for coalition building. Any amendment could be guaranteed for a floor vote if 1) it has, say, at least 10 cosponsors of each party OR 20 of one, OR other clear standards, and 2) it would not increase borrowing. That clarity would tell members precisely what they must do to get an amendment vote.
The explosion of collaboration would deepen member commitment to each other and to passage of the annual budget act. Many members’ priorities would be included, both through committee efforts and floor amendments. Proposals that fall short could not so persuasively be blamed on someone else. Poison pill amendments would be less likely to get floor time, and those that slip through would be more likely to be defeated.
The new Daines-Merkley proposal for amending Senate rules suggests another tantalizing possibility. The senators propose that the chair and ranking member of a committee structure the amendments for legislation reported from their committee. Applied here, the Budget Committees would report the annual budget act and coordinate with CBO to assess amendments’ fiscal effects.
Conference committees. The House and Senate used to work out differences in conference committees. Returning to that practice would deepen the stakes of many committee leaders in the annual budget act. More voices that different members may trust more than others could articulate why decisions came down a certain way. This would soften criticism and increase acceptance.
Debt limit. The current statutory debt limit is not a meaningful part of a productive regular order for budgeting. Yet it could be.
The annual budget act could include a debt limit increase for the next year’s anticipated borrowing. Or, if the budget met its targets for the prior fiscal year, the debt limit could be suspended until the next annual budget act is due (August 1) or until the next fiscal year begins (October 1). Congress has options.
Prevent shutdowns. Finally, eliminating the threat of shutdowns, which the Carter administration created, would focus members on the art of the possible. Automatic continuing appropriations would return to the pre-Carter status quo where lapses in appropriations would not interrupt programs for Americans. A healthy process as outlined here would give all members more reasons to vote for, and fewer reasons to vote against, the annual budget act. Still, the most bipartisan continuity-of-services legislation proposes keeping Congress in session voting on appropriations bills until they are done. Whether that applies at the start of the new fiscal year on October 1 or when the budget really should be done before August recess, imposing on members’ time is the surest way to treat them equally.
Each aspect earns member buy-in for an annual budget act. Their collective effect should make Congress a policymaking juggernaut.
