[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 160 (Thursday, November 13, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12547-S12549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THE ANNUAL BUDGETING PROCESS

  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I want to talk a little bit about what 
a joyous day of wrap-up of the Senate in the first year of the 2-year 
Congress could be if, as a matter of fact, we left here after 
completing the appropriations bills and went about our business to go 
home to our home States, had a good Christmas season, worked with all 
of our constituents, and then came back next year, the second year of a 
Congress, and the appropriations were already done and the budget was 
already done. But that is not going to happen.
  We just finished appropriations, I assume we will hear shortly. And 
what has taken up the entire year? I don't have the statistics. But 
early next year I will put them in the Record. But I am just going to 
ask the Senators who have a little recollection of the year to just 
think about what we did.
  First of all, we worked diligently on a balanced budget. That didn't 
occur until late May and early June. I am trying mightily to think what 
was accomplished before that, thankfully. I wish I had a better memory. 
But I don't think we did a lot. A few bills here and there, but I am 
sure we didn't have any superb oversight.
  People are all waiting for what? For the budget. And then for what? 
All the appropriations bills that have to come after it. Oh, by the 
way, in between, we had to implement the budget with those two big 
reconciliation bills.
  So essentially we stand on the threshold of wrapping up the Congress 
for a year, and we start next year. We are going to anxiously await the 
President's budget--another 1-year budget. Would it have been better 
for America, for the U.S. Congress, for all the agencies that are 
funded, from NIH to some grant to a university, to our Armed Forces, 
and all the money that they have to spend if they could have a 2-year 
appropriation? Wouldn't we be better off, in a 2-year Congress--that is 
what we are, by the Constitution--if in 1 year we did all of the 
budgeting and all of the appropriations?
  I have been working on budgets and appropriations bills long enough 
to know that there are all kinds of reasons for not doing 2-year 
budgets. I am an appropriator who thinks we should have a 2-year 
budget. Maybe many of the appropriators think we are better off sending 
our little measures to the President every year, and maybe we get more 
that way.
  Just look at the 2-year appropriations. You get 2 years in there 
because we do 2-year appropriations bills. If you are worried about 
getting enough things in it, you can do it twice, even as we 
appropriate only one time for 2 years. But I don't think there is a 
great majority who are worried about that. I think we just are fearful 
to break with tradition. Somehow or another we have been appropriating 
every year.
  Then when we wrote the Budget Act not too long ago, we said, ``Well, 
we have to have a budget every year.''
  So what do we do? We do that. It is almost like we get started next 
year, and we are right back at the budget, which many people think we 
just finished. Sure enough, in the middle of the year, some 
appropriators will start looking at their bills, and sure enough, we 
will be back here, predictably--if not at this time a little later--and 
we will still have two or three appropriations bills that we can't get 
completed. Why? Because they are being held up by authorization riders 
that are very, very much in contention.
  I ask, wouldn't we be better off if we had that kind of argument, be 
it on the money that we now refer to as the ``Mexican issue'' with 
reference to birth control and the kinds of family planning that we put 
money into foreign countries for, wouldn't we be better off if we voted 
on that only once every 2 years? It would have exactly the same effect. 
In fact, we could fight just one time out of 2 years. We could send 
these little bills back and forth between the President and the 
Congress with these little 1-day extensions of Government. We could do 
that only 1 year out of 2, and everybody could make the same vote. 
Everybody could make their case in the same way. But who would gain?
  I believe the institution known as the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House 
of Representatives would gain immensely. In fact, might I suggest that 
what it means to be a U.S. Senator would be dramatically changed if we 
had 2-year appropriations, a 2-year budgeting, because, if we did these 
every 2 years, we would be able to have oversight and see what is 
happening to the programs that we fund and the programs that we put in 
motion through the process called authorization.
  Then, Madam President and fellow Senators and anybody interested in 
good government, we have not yet been able to encapsulate into our 
thinking what the executive branch of Government wastes by having to 
produce a budget every single year with budget hearings at the OMB, 
with people who

[[Page S12548]]

are planning over at the National Institutes of Health to get a program 
going that is going to be 10 years in duration and come and present 
this 1-year part of that every single year. As a matter of fact, there 
would be twice as much time to do the things we are neglecting--to 
debate foreign policy in a real way, to have a 2- or 3-month debate on 
tax reform where people would really spend time. And day after day we 
could be on the floor instead of in some little room under the threat 
of a bill reconciliation measure from the budget process telling you to 
get it done in 25 days. We could have people looking at education, at 
the myriad and scores of bills that are already out there that are 
funding programs. Instead of finding new ones every year and new 
problems, we would go back and look to see what the whole entourage of 
education money looks like. Are there programs there that aren't 
working? But you need a lot of time to do that. You can't be getting up 
and running to the floor to vote every single year on 50 to 60 budget 
amendments, all of the appropriations bills with their attendant 
amendments, and then have to have your staff focus on what is in each 
one of those bills only to find you are back again in 6 months doing 
the same thing over again.
  As a matter of fact, the more I think about that and the more I talk 
about it, the more I think I am prepared to say for us to appropriate 
and budget annually when the Constitution says Congress lasts for 2 
years, that it is absurd from the standpoint of modern planning with 
the modern tools we have to do the estimating that we are doing every 
year instead of doing it for 2 years.
  Some are going to say you are going to have to have a lot of 
supplemental appropriations. I am sure the occupant of the chair is 
already hearing that when she speaks about 2-year appropriations and 2-
year budgets. Let me tell you, even with 1-year appropriations, we have 
to have supplementals because some few things break in the Government, 
and we are not quite right on, and we have to go fix them. But there is 
a way to limit the supplementals even in a 2-year process to no more 
than we are doing now.
  Once I asked four different departments of Government, as they 
reported to the Appropriations Committee, to give us information on the 
appropriations before us on that particular year and asked how much of 
it is similar if not exactly the same as last year's. You would be 
surprised. As much as 90 percent of appropriations bills are the same 
year after year. Isn't it interesting? We debate them all over again. 
We mark them up all over again, and we add these amendments that cause 
us to debate ad infinitum, which could just as well be 2-year 
amendments as 1-year. But we do it to ourselves by making sure we go 
through this kind of difficult confrontational atmosphere every single 
year.
  Put yourself in the position of those in America that we have said 
should get some Government money for something. I have spoken to large 
groups of scientists from our universities, from our hospital research 
centers, from our laboratories, and they all want more certainty of 
funding. Of course, they would all like more funding. But they shout to 
the rooftops when you say, wouldn't you prefer to have 2 years instead 
of 1 year as your appropriation? Could you manage it better? Could you 
be more efficient? The answer to all of those questions is 
``absolutely.'' Yet, we remain stuck in the mud of tradition saying we 
have to do it every single year.
  There is a bill pending. It has cleared the Governmental Operations 
Committee 13 to 1--S. 261. It is here. It is at the desk. I am thankful 
that since we have a 2-year Congress, it is still at the desk. Congress 
isn't finished until next year come January.
  I am going to work very hard with others in this Senate to urge that 
our leader schedule early a lengthy time on the floor in the early days 
of the Congress to debate this issue. Thirty-three Senators from both 
sides of the aisle cosponsored the measure before it cleared 
Governmental Operations. I believe, if I had enough time to circulate 
it even more among Senators, that I would have had more than 50 
Senators supporting it. It might be because of the processes around 
here that there will be a Senator who will object, and we might have to 
get 60 votes, because obviously changing the budget to 2 years and the 
appropriations for 2 years could be a controversial issue.
  So I am prepared for the 60-vote requirement. But even at that, I 
want to say to those who oppose it, who oppose this modernization, this 
bringing into modern times of our processes around here, that I believe 
there are more than 60 Senators if they hear the debate and if we 
configure that debate so as to make the Senators feel just like we are 
finished here today instead of next February or March, we could be 
saying if this 2-year budget, 2-year appropriations bill, had passed, 
we would be finished for a full year. We could do other things, and the 
departments of our Government could go about their business without 
preparing yet another budget and going through all of the rigor, time, 
effort, and lack of efficiency that comes with that.
  So, Madam President and fellow Senators, I just want to make two 
wrap-up points. I believe anybody watching this year, if presented with 
a real opportunity to go through this only once every 2 years instead 
of twice and have time for other things, we would probably have a huge, 
huge plurality voting with us.
  The American people can't get excited about process issues, but if 
they understood what we go through and what we have assigned to 
ourselves, to the executive branch and to all those that we fund by way 
of making it difficult and tough and inefficient by doing the same 
thing over each year, then I think the American people would be excited 
by this reform. If the people knew we could do it for 2 years at a 
time, if we could just get that out there, get that debated in a very 
open manner that everybody understands, then we might have kind of a 
birth of modernization, kind of a ray of light shining on these 
processes, and I believe the American people would gain.
  I believe we would do our jobs better. I believe we could do 
oversight; we could have more hearings; we could actually, every couple 
of years, take a month or two and go out in the hinterland and hold 
hearings in our country which wouldn't be all that bad. How are we 
going to do it under the current annual process? Somebody think of that 
around here and the first thing you know there will be five 
appropriations bills ready for the normal 50 votes, or a budget 
resolution taking 2, 3 weeks, taking vote after vote after vote, half 
of them being sense-of-the-Senate issues which shouldn't be even 
allowed on a budget resolution, but that is the current process.
  So that is one point. We would be doing the American people a better 
job if we could do that.
  And second, the Senate and House would be better places within which 
to do business for the American people if there wasn't so much 
redundancy and waste of time and effort. So we are going to try to see 
if we can accomplish both of those goals which I think are rather 
admirable.
  I do not want to leave the wrong impression for those who seek to 
defeat this measure that it violates the Budget Act. The bill is not 
subject to a 60-vote point of order. It just takes a simple majority. 
It has been in both committees. That is why we went through that. It's 
gone to the Governmental Affairs Committee. Then it went to the Budget 
Committee, which was discharged, and so it is here as any other normal 
bill. So if we get that magic 51 votes, we can change this process.
  I just want to put in the Record the major legislation that passed 
this year and even some of our authorizing processes were very late for 
one reason or another. While a great deal of legislation has passed, we 
only will clear about three major authorization bills for the 
President's signature: DOD authorization, FDA reform, SBA reform. The 
compelling amount of time and the overwhelming majority of effort was 
spent on the budget resolution, two reconciliation bills, and 13 
appropriations bills. And we haven't quite done that; six continuing 
resolutions before we're done tonight. I do not blame anyone for that. 
The chairman of the Appropriations Committee this year has been a 
stalwart in trying to get the appropriations bills done on time. He has 
not benefited from the two Houses being able to agree on four or five 
issues and a majority in the House being on the opposite side of the 
President on two or three issues.

[[Page S12549]]

  Besides appropriations, we spent a great deal of effort on the budget 
resolution and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and the Taxpayer Relief 
Act of 1997--the two reconciliation bills called for by the balanced 
budget agreement and the budget resolution. And frankly, hardly any 
time was left for other major bills to be debated for any length of 
time, and I think we can do our job a lot better than that.
  I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
  Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.

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