[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 60 (Tuesday, May 16, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H3078-H3093]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COMPREHENSIVE BUDGET PROCESS REFORM ACT OF 1999
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call
up House Resolution 499 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 499
Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this
resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule
XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the
Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of
the bill (H.R. 853) to amend the Congressional Budget Act of
1974 to provide for joint resolutions on the budget, reserve
funds for emergency spending, strengthened enforcement of
budgetary decisions, increased accountability for Federal
spending, accrual budgeting for Federal insurance programs,
mitigation of the bias in the budget process toward higher
spending, modifications in paygo requirements when there is
an on-budget surplus, and for other purposes. The first
reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. General debate
shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed 90
minutes, with 40 minutes equally divided and controlled by
the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on
the Budget, 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by the
chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on
Rules, and 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the
chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on
Appropriations. After general debate the bill shall be
considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. In lieu
of the amendments recommended by the Committee on the Budget,
the Committee on Rules, and the Committee on Appropriations
now printed in the bill, it shall be in order to consider as
an original bill for the purpose of amendment under the five-
minute rule an amendment in the nature of a substitute
consisting of the text of H.R. 4397. That amendment in the
nature of a substitute shall be considered as read. No
amendment to that amendment in the nature of a substitute
shall be in order except those printed in the report of the
Committee on Rules. Each amendment may be offered only in the
order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member
designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall
be debatable for the time specified in the report equally
divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent,
shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject
to a demand for division of the question in the House or in
the Committee of the Whole. All points of order against the
amendments printed in the report are waived. The Chairman of
the Committee of the Whole may: (1) postpone until a time
during further consideration in the Committee of the Whole a
request for a recorded vote on any amendment; and (2) reduce
to five minutes the minimum time for electronic voting on any
postponed question that follows another electronic vote
without intervening business, provided that the minimum time
for electronic voting on the first in any series of questions
shall be 15 minutes. At the conclusion of consideration of
the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report
the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been
adopted. Any Member may demand a separate vote in the House
on any amendment adopted in the Committee of the Whole to the
bill or to the amendment in the nature of a substitute made
in order as original text. The previous question shall be
considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to
final passage without intervening motion except one motion to
recommit with or without instructions.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hayes). The gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Goss) is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley); pending which I yield
myself such time as I
[[Page H3079]]
may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded
is for the purpose of debate on this subject only.
(Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks, and include extraneous material.)
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, this is an appropriate structured rule for
consideration of the Comprehensive Budget Reform Act of 1999. As one of
the authors of the underlying bill, I can tell my colleagues that great
pains were taken to accommodate the concerns of our House committees
and Members in this legislation.
In fashioning this rule, we have taken similar care to ensure, as
best as possible, a nonpartisan substantive debate about our budget
process. Leaving aside our budget policy differences, and I emphasize
policy, we do hope to come to a consensus on an improved, outcome-
neutral budget process.
The rule provides for 90 minutes of general debate, divided fairly
between the three committees of jurisdiction, the Committee on Budget,
the Committee on Rules, and Committee on Appropriations. The rule makes
in order seven amendments from both sides of the aisle. Three of those
amendments are attempts to put a section back into the bill that were
dropped at the request of committees. One aims to strike altogether the
linchpin of the bill, the Joint Budget Resolution. So I think that the
Committee on Rules has clearly erred on the side of the inclusion of
the amendment process, if we have erred at all on this.
Mr. Speaker, when I came to Congress, I suspect I was like most
Americans out there watching the debate on budget process. I knew
little about how the budget process worked in Washington, and what I
did know did not make a whole lot of sense.
Since becoming the chairman of the Subcommittee on Legislative and
Budget Process nearly 6 years ago, I had a chance to learn a great deal
about the inner workings of our congressional budget process. I have
really been down in the weeds on a lot of the issues and listened to
the best and the brightest budget experts we can find and all their
green eye shade associates who have come forward and tried to help us
along in this process.
{time} 1300
I have also lived through a number of our annual budget battles,
which have not been particularly pretty, as many will recall. Through
these experiences, I have arrived at one simple truth about our budget
process. The best reforms in the world are meaningless if at the end of
the day, Members are not committed to enforcing them. So enforcement is
a big issue, and we have certainly provided for it in this rule when we
get to the debate.
H.R. 853 recognizes this is a reality. It properly encourages the
President and Congress to agree on a joint budget resolution, but
provides the flexibility of a fallback in years they elect not to do
that, although we create the incentives to do that. We get real about
budgeting for emergencies by adding a rainy day reserve fund, but we do
so in a way that is workable and serious.
Instead of creating rigid procedural sticks that will be ignored, we
encourage committees and Members to be better stewards of their
programs and agencies under their jurisdiction. In Florida, we believe
in sunshine, and I am hopeful a little sunshine will enhance oversight
and accountability inside the Beltway as well.
Along those lines, I think that the amendment of the chairman of the
Committee on Rules, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), to
convert the current annual budget and appropriations process to a
biennial one is a particularly good fit for this bill. By structuring
our calendar to prefer budget matters in the first year and oversight
in the second, we will create an atmosphere where both responsibilities
show signs of improvement. It is a good amendment, and I hope it is
adopted once we consider it.
Let me be very clear, H.R. 853 is not a panacea for all that ails us,
and it is certainly not foolproof. We will still have our policy
differences and we will still use, possibly abuse, the budget process
to advance individual causes. But this is a good bipartisan work
product, primarily because it does not attempt to solve every problem.
The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and the gentleman from Maryland
(Mr. Cardin), from opposite sides of the aisle, should be commended for
resisting the temptation to use this vehicle for partisan manipulation.
While H.R. 853 has many parents, I would like to congratulate them in
particular for their leadership and resolve throughout the last few
years. As I say, this has been in the works for a long time.
Whatever our view on the individual budget process reform pieces that
are going to be offered up, we should be able to support this rule. All
of the major substantive amendments presented to us have been made in
order. We have not gamed the system to give preference to any
controversial provision. We have taken the guidance of the Speaker, the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), to heart and let the House work
its will on a nonpartisan basis. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule.
Biennial Budgeting Amendment to H.R. 853, the Comprehensive Budget
Process Reform Act of 1999
section-by-section summary
Offered by Reps. Dreier, Luther, Regula, Hall (OH), Bass, McCarthy
(MO), Goss, Condit, et al.
``To provide for a biennial budget and appropriations
process and to enhance programmatic oversight and the
management, efficiency, and performance of the Federal
Government.''
Short Summary: Establishes a two-year budgeting and
appropriations cycle and timetable. Defines the budget
biennium as the two consecutive fiscal years beginning on
October 1 of any odd-numbered year. Sets forth a special
timetable for any first session that begins in any year
during which the term of a President begins (except one who
starts a second consecutive term).
Adds a New Title VII Entitled ``Biennial Budgeting''
Section 701. Findings. Outlines nine congressional findings
on the budget process and biennial budgeting.
Section 702. Revision of Timetable. Amends section 300 of
the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974
to revise the timetable of the congressional budget process
to reflect a biennial budget schedule. The first session of
any Congress is primarily devoted to the consideration of the
budget resolution, the regular appropriations bills, and any
necessary reconciliation legislation. In general, the revised
timetable is similar to the current timetable except that
most of the milestones only apply to the first session of a
Congress. The timetable is modified to extend the deadline
for completion of the biennial budget resolution to May 15th.
The revised timetable contains only three deadlines for the
second session: (1) The President must submit a mid-biennium
budget review to Congress by February 15th; (2) the
Congressional Budget Office must submit its annual report to
the Budget Committees of the House and the Senate no later
than six weeks after the President submits the budget review;
and (3) Congress must complete action on bills and
resolutions authorizing new budget authority for the
succeeding biennium by the last day of the session. This
section also creates a new section 300(b) of the Budget Act
that establishes a special timetable for the submission and
consideration of a budget in the case of any first session of
Congress that begins in any year during which the term of a
President (except a President who succeeds himself) begins.
Generally, the budget deadlines are extended by 6 weeks to
give a new President more time to prepare and submit the
budget.
Section 701. Amendments to the Congressional Budget and
Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Section 703(a) amends
section 2(2) of the Budget Act relating to the ``Declaration
of Purposes'' of the Budget Act to account for the
congressional determination biennially of the appropriate
level of Federal revenues and expenditures.
Section 703(b)(1) amends the definition of a budget
resolution in section 3(4) of the Budget Act to reflect its
application to a biennium as opposed to a fiscal year.
Section 703(b)(2) amends section 3 of the Budget Act by
adding a new paragraph (13) to define the term biennium as
``the period of two consecutive fiscal years beginning on
October 1 of any odd-number year.''
Section 703(c) amends the Budget Act to make the budget
resolution a biennial concurrent resolution on the budget.
Section 703(c)(1) amends section 301(a) of the Budget Act
regarding the required contents of the budget resolution to
conform its application to the biennium beginning on October
1 of each odd-numbered year and its consideration to the
biennial timetable for completion, which is by May 15 of each
odd-numbered year.
Section 703(c)(2) amends action 301(b) of the Budget Act to
ensure that the additional matters which may be included in
the budget resolution apply to a biennium.
Section 703(c)(3) amends section 301(d) of the Budget Act
to conform the submission of committee views and estimates to
the Budget Committees to a biennial cycle.
Section 703(c)(4) amends section 301(e)(1) of the Budget
Act to conform the requirements of the Budget Committee's
hearings on the
[[Page H3080]]
budget and the Budget Committee's reporting of the budget
resolution to a biennial schedule. The House Budget Committee
would report a biennial budget resolution by April 1st of
each odd-numbered years.
Section 703(c)(5) amends section 301(f) of the Budget Act
relating to the achievement of goals for reducing
unemployment to conform it to a biennial cycle.
Section 703(c)(6) amends section 301(g)(1) of the Budget
Act to conform the provisions relating to the economic
assumptions of the budget resolution to a biennial schedule.
Section 703(c)(7) and 8) amend section 301 to make
conforming changes to the section heading and the table of
contents of the Budget Act.
Section 703(d) amends section 302(a) of the Budget Act
regarding committee allocations in the budget resolution, to
require the conference report on a budget resolution to
include an allocation of budget authority and outlays to each
committee for each year in the biennium and the total of all
fiscal years covered by the resolution as well as makes
conforming change to subsections (f) and (g) of section 302
to reflect a biennial cycle and the biennial timetable.
Section 701(e)(1) amends section 303(a) of the Budget Act,
which prohibits consideration of legislation, as reported,
providing new budget authority, changes in revenues, or
changes in the public debt for a fiscal year until the budget
resolution for that year has been agreed to, to reflect
the application of the budget resolution to a biennium.
Section 703(e)(2) amends section 303(b) of the Budget Act
relating to the exceptions in the House of Representatives
from the application of this point of order, to account for a
biennial budget cycle. The application of these exceptions
are also amended to reflect the special biennial timetable
utilized during the first term of a new President.
Section 703(e)(3) amends section 303(c)(1) of the Budget
Act to conform the application of this point of order in the
Senate to a biennial budget cycle.
Section 703(f) amends section 304 of the Budget Act,
regarding permissible revisions of budget resolutions, to
conform to the biennial budget cycle. This subsection
maintains current law which allows Congress to revise the
budget resolution at any time during the biennium.
Section 703(g) amends section 305(a)(3) of the Budget Act,
relating to the procedures for consideration of the budget
resolution, to conform references to the budget resolution to
account for its application to a biennium.
Section 703(h) amends section 307 of the Budget Act to
conform the timetable for completing House Appropriations
Committee action on regular appropriations bills by June 10
to a biennial cycle. This section also makes conforming
amendments to reflect the special biennial timetable utilized
during the first term of a new President.
Section 703(i) amends section 308 of the Budget Act to
require the Congressional Budget Office to file quarterly
budget reports with the House and Senate Budget Committees.
These reports are to compare revenues, spending, and the
deficit or surplus for the current fiscal year with the
assumptions used in the congressional budget resolution. CBO
is also required to make the reports available to other
interested parties upon request. These reports will enable
the Congress to compare actual budget results to earlier
estimates. The frequent periodic reports by CBO on the
progress of fiscal policy and economic developments since
action on the budget resolution will inform the Congress
about current status of the budget and its earlier underlying
projections by using updated projects and actual budget
figures to date. The reports can also serve to facilitate
additional reconciliation legislation (between biennial
budget resolutions) as necessary due to changes in the
economy or policy emphasis.
Section 703(j) amends section 309 of the Budget Act to
conform the timetable for completion of all House action on
the regular appropriation bills before the House adjourns for
more than three calendar days during the month of July. This
section also makes conforming amendments to reflect the
special biennial timetable utilized during the first term of
a new President.
Section 703(k) amends section 310 of the Budget Act to
conform the reconciliation process to a biennial budget
cycle. It also strikes subsection (f) which currently
prohibits the House from adjourning for more than 3 calendar
days during the month of July until all required
reconciliation legislation is completed. This is necessary to
reflect the budget resolutions application to the biennium
and the possibility of considering reconciliation legislation
during the second session.
Section 703(l)(1) and (2) amend section 311(a)(1) and (2)
of the Budget Act respectively, to prohibit consideration in
the House or Senate of any legislation that would cause the
total levels of budget authority or total levels of outlays
to greater than or that would cause the total level of
revenues to be less than those levels set forth in the most
recently agreed to budget resolution for either fiscal year
of the biennium or for the total of each fiscal year in the
biennium and the ensuing fiscal years for which allocations
are provided in the budget resolution.
Section 703(l)(3) amends section 311(a)(3) of the Budget
Act to conform the point of order in the Senate against any
legislation that would cause a decrease in the Social
Security levels set forth in the budget resolution for a
biennial budget cycle.
Section 703(m) amends section 312(c) of the Budget Act to
conform the Senate's maximum deficit amount point of order
for a biennial budget cycle.
Section 704. Amendments to the Rules of the House of
Representatives. Section 704(a) amends clause 4(a)(1)(A) of
rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives, relating
to the required Appropriations Committee hearings on the
President's budget submission, to conform to the biennial
timetable.
Section 704(b) amends clause 4(a)(4) of Rule X of the Rules
of the House, relating to the suballocations of the
Appropriations Committee, to conform to a biennial budget
resolution.
Section 704(c) amends clause 4(b)(2) of Rule X of the Rules
of the House, relating to the Budget Committee's hearings on
the budget, to conform to a biennial budget resolution.
Section 704(d) amends clause 4(b) of Rule X of the Rules of
the House to add a new subparagraph (7), to require the House
Budget committee to use the second session of each Congress
to study issues with long-term budgetary and economic
implications, including holding hearings and receiving
testimony from committees of jurisdiction to identify problem
areas and to report on the results of their oversight
activities. The Budget Committee should issue to the Speaker
by January 1 of each odd-numbered year a report identifying
the key issues facing the Congress in the next biennium.
Section 704(e) amends clause 11(i) of Rule X of the Rules
of the House, relating to the duties of the Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, to conform to a biennial budget
cycle.
Section 704(f) amends clause 4(e) of Rule X of the Rules of
the House, relating to the duties of the standing committees
of the House to maximize annual appropriations for the
programs and actives within their jurisdictions, to establish
a new preference for biennial appropriations.
Section 704(g) amends clause 4(f) of Rule X of the Rules of
the house, relating to the Budget Act responsibilities of the
standing committees of the House, to conform to a biennial
timetable.
Section 704(h) amends clause 3(d)(2)(A) of Rule XIII of the
Rules of the House, relating to committee cost estimates, to
conform to a biennial timetable.
Section 704(i) amends clause 5(a)(1) of Rule XIII of the
Rules of the House, relating to privileged reports from the
Appropriations Committee, to conform to a biennial timetable.
Section 705. Amendments to Title 31, United States Code.
Section 705(a) amends section 1101 of Title 31 to define the
term biennium as ``the period of two consecutive fiscal years
beginning on October 1 of any odd-numbered year.'' This is
the same definition given such term in paragraph (11) of
section 3 of the Budget Act.
Section 705(b)(1) amends section 1105 of Title 31 to
require that on or before the first Monday in February of
each odd-numbered year (or, if applicable, as provided by
section 300(b) of the Budget Act), the President shall
transmit to Congress, the budget for the biennium beginning
on October 1 of such calendar year. The President must
include a budget message and summary and supporting
information with the budget submission.
Section 705(b)(2) amends section 1105(a)(5) of Title 31 to
conform the required contents of the budget submission with
respect to expenditures to account for a biennial budget
cycle.
Section 705(b)(3) amends section 1105(a)(6) of Title 31 to
conform the required contents of the budget submission with
respect to receipts to account for a biennial budget cycle.
Section 705(b)(4) amends section 1105(a)(9)(C) of Title 31
to conform the required contents of the budget submission
with respect to balance statements to account for a biennial
budget cycle.
Section 705(b)(5) amends section 1105(a)(12) of Title 31 to
conform the required contents of the budget submission with
respect to government functions and activities to account for
a biennial budget cycle.
Section 705(b)(6) amends section 1105(a)(13) of Title 31 to
conform the required contents of the budget submission with
respect to allowances to account for a biennial budget cycle.
Section 705(b)(7) amends section 1105(a)(14) of Title 31 to
conform the required contents of the budget submission with
respect to allowances for unanticipated and uncontrollable
expenditures to account for a biennial budget cycle.
Section 705(b)(8) amends section 1105(a)(16) of Title 31 to
conform the required contents of the budget submission with
respect to tax expenditures to account for a biennial budget
cycle.
Section 705(b)(9) amends section 1105(a)(17) of Title 31 to
conform the required contents of the budget submission with
respect to estimates for future fiscal years to account for a
biennial budget cycle.
Section 705(b)(10) amends section 1105(a)(18) of Title 31
to conform the required contents of the budget submission
with respect to prior year outlays to account for a biennial
budget cycle.
Section 705(b)(11) amends section 1105(a)(19) of Title 31
to conform the required contents of the budget submission
with respect to prior year receipts to account for a biennial
budget cycle.
Section 705(c) amends section 1105(b) of Title 31,
regarding estimated expenditures
[[Page H3081]]
and proposed appropriations for the legislative and judicial
branches, to require the submission of these proposals to the
President by October 16th of even-number years.
Section 705(d) amends section 1105(c) of Title 31,
regarding the President's recommendations if there is a
proposed deficit or surplus, to conform to a biennial budget
cycle.
Section 705(e) amends section 1105(e)(1) of Title 31,
regarding capitol investment analyses, to conform to a
biennial budget cycle.
Section 705(f)(1) and (2) amends section 1106 (a) and (b)
of Title 31 respectively, relating to the President's
submission of supplemental budget estimates and changes, to
conform to a biennial budget cycle. The President is still
required to submit a Mid-session Review of the budget by July
16 of each year as well as will now be required to also
submit a Mid-biennium Review on or before February 15 of each
year even numbered year.
Section 705(g)(1) amends section 1109(a) of Title 31,
regarding the President's submission of current program and
activity estimates, to conform to a biennial budget cycle and
require its submission with the overall budget submission for
each odd-numbered year as required by section 1105.
Section 705(g)(2) amends section 1109(b) of Title 31,
regarding the Joint Economic committee's analysis of the
President's current program and activity estimates, to
require the Joint Economic Committee to submit an economic
evaluation of such estimates to the Budget Committee as part
of its views and estimates within 6 weeks of the President's
budget submission for each odd-numbered year.
Section 705(h) amends section 1110 of Title 31, regarding
advance requests for authorization legislation to require the
President to submit requests for authorization legislation by
March 31st of even-numbered years.
Section 706. Two-Year Appropriations; Title and Style of
Appropriations Acts. Section 706 amends section 105 of Title
I of the U.S. Code to conform the statutory style and
definition of appropriations Acts to require that they cover
each of two fiscal years of a biennium.
Section 707. Multi-Year Authorizations. Section 707(a)
amends Title III of the Budget Act by adding a new section
318 that establishes a new point of order in the House and
Senate against the consideration of any bill, joint
resolution, amendment, motion or conference report that does
contain a specific authorization of appropriations for any
purpose for less than each fiscal year in one or more
bienniums. This prohibition does not apply to an
authorization of appropriations for a single fiscal year. For
any program, project or activity if the measure (defined
as a bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion or
conference report) containing that authorization includes
a provision expressly stating the following: ``Congress
finds that no authorization of appropriation will be
required for [Insert name of applicable program, project,
or activity] for any subsequent fiscal year.'' It further
defines a specific authorization of appropriations as an
authorization for the enactment of an amount of
appropriations or amounts not to exceed an amount of
appropriations (whether stated as a sum certain, as a
limit, or as such sums as may be necessary) for any
purpose for a fiscal year.
Section 707(b) amends section 1(b) of the Budget Act to
conform the table of contents of the Budget Act to account
for this new section 318.
Section 708. Government Strategic and Performance Plans on
a Biennial Basis. Section 708 amends the Government and
Performance and Results Act of 1993 (the Results Act) to
incorporate GPRA into the biennial budget cycle. The Results
Act requires federal agencies to develop strategic plans,
performance plans, and performance reports. Strategic plans
set out the agencies' missions and general goals. Performance
plans lay out the specific quantifiable goals and measures.
Performance reports compare actual performance with the goals
of past performance plans. The Results Act currently requires
federal agencies to consult with congressional committees as
they develop their strategic plans. The Results Act requires
all federal agencies to submit their strategic and
performance plans to the Office of Management and Budget,
along with their budget submissions, by September 30 of each
year. Finally, the Results Act requires the President to
include a performance plan for the entire government.
Sections 708(a) through (g) amend section 306 of title 5,
sections 1105, 1119 and 9703 of title 31, and sections 2802
and 2803 of title 39 require agencies to prepare strategic
and performance plans every two years, in conjunction with
the President's development of a biennial budget. In
addition, these amendments make other changes to conform
strategic and performance plans to a biennial budget cycle.
Section 708(h) amends section 301(d) of the Budget Act to
require Congressional committees to review the strategic
plans, performance plans, and performance reports of agencies
in their jurisdiction. Committees may then provide their
views on the agency's plans or reports as part of their views
and estimates on the President's budget submitted to the
Budget Committees.
Section 708(i) provides that the amendments by this section
shall take effect on March 1, 2003.
Section 709. Biennial Appropriations Bills. Section
709(a)(1) amends clause 2(a) of House Rule XXI to provide
that in the House of Representatives an appropriation may not
be reported in a general appropriation bill (other than a
supplemental appropriation bill), and may not be in order as
an amendment thereto, unless it provides new budget authority
or establishes a level of obligations under contract
authority for each fiscal year of a biennium. If further
provides that this prohibition shall not apply with respect
to an appropriation for a single fiscal year for any program,
project, or activity if the bill or amendment thereto
containing that appropriation includes a provision expressly
stating the following: Congress finds that no additional
funding beyond one fiscal year will be required and the
[Insert name of applicable program, project, or activity]
will be completed or terminated after the amount provided has
been expended.'' The subparagraph is further amended to
provide that such a statement shall not constitute
legislating on an appropriation bill if it is included with
an appropriation for a single fiscal year for any program,
project, or activity.
Section 709(a)(2) amends clause 5(b)(1) of House Rule XXII
to apply similar prohibitions against appropriation
conference reports.
Section 709(b)(1) amends Title III of the Congressional
Budget Act of 1974 to add a new section 319 to create a point
of order in the Senate against consideration in any odd-
numbered year of any regular appropriation bill providing new
budget authority or a limitation on obligations under the
jurisdiction of the Committee on Appropriations for only the
first fiscal year of a biennium, unless the program, project,
or activity for which the new budget authority or obligation
limitation is provided will require no additional authority
beyond one year and will be completed or terminated after the
amount provided has been expended.
Section 709(b)(2) amends section 1(b) of the Budget Act to
conform the table of contents of the Budget Act to account
for this new section 319.
Section 710. Assistance By Federal Agencies to Standing
Committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Section 710(a) requires the head of each Federal agency under
the jurisdiction of a standing committee to provide to
committee those studies, information, analyses, reports, and
assistance as may be requested by the chairman and ranking
minority member of the committee.
Section 710(b) requires the head of each Federal agency to
furnish to such committee documentation containing
information received, compiled, or maintained by the agency
as part of the operation or administration of a program, or
specifically compiled pursuant to a request in support of a
review of a program, as may be requested by the chairman and
ranking minority member of such committee.
Section 710(c) requires that, within 30 days after the
receipt of a request from a chairman and ranking minority
member of a standing committee having jurisdiction over a
program being reviewed, the Comptroller General furnish to
the committee summaries of any audits or reviews of such
program the Comptroller General has completed during the
preceding six years.
Section 710(d) reaffirms the role of the Comptroller
General, the Director of the Congressional Research Service,
and the Director of the Congressional Budget Office to
furnish (consistent with established protocols) to each
standing committee of the House and Senate such information,
studies, analyses, and reports as the chairman and ranking
minority member may request to assist the committee in
conducting reviews and studies of programs under its
jurisdiction.
Section 711. Report on Two-Year Fiscal Period. Requires
that, not later than 180 days after the enactment of this
Act, the Director of OMB shall determine the impact of
changing the definition of a fiscal year and the budget
process based on that definition to a 2 year fiscal period
with a biennial budget process based on the 2 year period,
and shall report his findings to the Committees on Budget
in the House and Senate and the Committee on Rules in the
House.
Section 712. Special Transition Period for the 107th
Congress. Section 712(a) requires the President to include in
the FY 2002 budget submission an identification of the budget
accounts for which an appropriation should be made for each
fiscal year of the FY 2002-2003 biennium and any necessary
budget authority that should be provided for each such fiscal
year for those identified budget accounts.
Section 712(b) requires the Appropriations Committees of
each House to review the President's recommendations and
include an assessment of those recommendations and any
recommendations of their own in the committee's overall views
and estimates on the President's budget which they are
required to submit to their respective Budget Committees.
Section 712(c)(1) requires the Budget Committees of each
House to review the recommendations of both the President and
the Appropriations Committees with respect to those budget
accounts that should be funded for the biennium.
Section 712(c)(2) requires the report of the Committee on
the Budget of each House and the joint explanatory statement
of the managers accompanying the budget resolution for FY
2002 to include an allocation to the Appropriations
Committees for FY 2003 from which the Appropriations
Committee can
[[Page H3082]]
fund certain accounts in the FY 2002 appropriations bills for
each of the fiscal years in the FY 2003-2004 biennium.
Section 712(c)(3) requires the report of the Committee on
the Budget of each House and the joint explanatory statement
of the managers accompanying the budget resolution for FY
2002 to include the assumptions upon which the allocation to
the Appropriations Committees for FY 2003 is made.
Section 712(d)(2) directs the GAO to work with the
Committees of Congress during the first session of 107th
Congress to develop plans to transition program
authorizations to a multi-year schedule.
Section 712(d)(2) requires GAO to continue to provide
assistance to the Congress with respect to programmatic
oversight and in particular to assist committees in designing
and conforming programmatic oversight procedures for the
Fiscal Year 2003-2004 biennium.
Section 712(e) provides for a CBO report to Congress
(before January 15, 2002) listing all those programs and
activities that were funded during FY 2002 with no
authorization and all those programs and activities whose
authorizations will expire during that fiscal year, FY 2003
and FY 2004.
Section 712(f) requires the President's budget submission
for FY 2003 to including an evaluation of and recommendations
regarding the transitional biennial budget process for the
fiscal year 2002-2003 biennium.
Section 712(g) requires CBO to issue a report on or before
March 31, 2002 include an evaluation of and recommendations
regarding the transitional biennial budget process for the
fiscal year 2002-2003 biennium.
Section 713. Effective Date. Except as provided by sections
708, 711 and 712, the Act is effective January 1, 2003, and
applicable to budget, authorization and appropriations
legislation for the biennium beginning in FY 2004.
____
Council for
Citizens Against Government Waste,
Washington, DC, May 8, 2000.
Hon. David Dreier,
Cannon House Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Dreier: On behalf of the 600,000 members of
the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), I
would like to express my support for your biennial budget
amendment to the Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act.
Your amendment will build upon several significant reforms
to the federal budget process that are embodied in the base
bill. The creation of a biennial budget will allow Congress
to perform its most critical responsibilities. Devoting the
first session of each Congress to the budget and
appropriation process will enable members to spend the second
session on oversight into the effectiveness of that spending.
A two-year budget will save a great degree of time and
resources that are being wasted on the current process. This
reform will streamline the budget process and make Congress
more accountable to the American taxpayer.
CCAGW urges your House colleagues to support your
amendment. The vote on your bill will be among those
considered for CCAGW's 2000 Congressional Ratings.
Sincerely,
Thomas Schatz,
President.
____
Chamber of Commerce
of the United States of America,
Washington, DC, May 12, 2000.
Hon. David Dreier,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Representative Dreier: The U.S. House of
Representatives is expected to consider H.R. 853, the
Comprehensive Budget Reform Act sponsored by Representatives
Jim Nussle (R-IA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Porter Goss (R-FL)
in the next few days. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce urges you
to support this common-sense legislation.
This measure, the product of extensive bipartisan
negotiations and congressional hearings, will strengthen the
existing federal budget process and provide additional--and
needed--accountability of federal spending decisions.
Among its major provisions, this legislation establishes a
reserve fund to better budget for emergency needs; requires
more legislation be subjected to budgetary enforcement rules;
prohibits the consideration of legislation creating new
spending programs unless the authorization is for ten years
or less; and requires that both the President and Congress
better budget for many long-term unfunded federal
liabilities.
During consideration of H.R. 853, Representative David
Dreier is expected to offer a biennial budget amendment. The
U.S. Chamber of Commerce earlier this year testified before
the Committee on Rules in support of a biennial federal
budget and we strongly support the Dreier amendment. Biennial
budgeting would help streamline budget decisions and allow
the Congress and Federal agencies more time to manage and
oversee federal programs.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world's largest business
federation, representing more than three million
organizations of every size, sector, and region, urges you to
support H.R. 853 and the Dreier biennial budget amendment to
their eventual enactment into law.
Sincerely,
R. Bruce Josten,
Executive Vice President,
Government Affairs.
____
The Concord Coalition,
Washington, DC, May 11, 2000.
Hon. David Dreier,
Hon. Bill Luther,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Dreier and Representative Luther: The Concord
Coalition is pleased to support your amendment to H.R. 853,
The Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act, which would move
the budget and appropriations processes to biennial cycles.
Putting the President's budget, the Congressional Budget
Resolution, appropriations, and oversight on a two-year cycle
that coincides with the sessions of Congress is an excellent
proposal. Moving to a biennial budget process would make the
legislative and executive branches more efficient, while
helping to shield the budget process from the gamesmanship
and election year politics that have frequently spelled
fiscal disaster in years past.
One of the strongest arguments in favor of your amendment
is that it would enhance opportunities for Congressional
oversight. As you know, many members of Congress have come to
believe that the annual, repetitive battle over the budget
makes it impossible to engage in any meaningful oversight.
Evidence in support of this perception is the fact that,
according to CBO, some $121 billion worth of FY 2000
appropriations were made for programs and activities with
expired authorizations. With biennial budgeting in place, the
first session of each Congress would ideally be spent on
setting priorities and funding levels, which would leave a
significant portion of the second session available for long-
term planning and oversight.
The Concord Coalition believes that your amendment also
makes sense from the perspective of government efficiency,
given that Congress functions in a biennial mode. Conforming
the budget cycle to the Congressional cycle is a sensible
change that would replace budget politics with more
productive work. Too much time is consumed needlessly in
repetitious budget preparation, justification, and
appropriation. With a two-year budget, policymakers will be
able to spend less time negotiating budget agreements and
invest more of their energy in improving government
performance.
For these reasons, The Concord Coalition is pleased to
support your amendment establishing biennial budgeting for
the federal government. We commend you and the co-sponsors
for putting forward this bipartisan proposal, which we
believe would produce a more efficient and fiscally
responsible budget process.
Sincerely,
Robert L. Bixby,
Executive Director.
____
Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget
Washington, DC, May 10, 2000.
Hon. David Dreier,
Chairman, Committee on Rules,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: We understand that the House will take
up the Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act of 1999 on
Thursday this week. We also understand that you will offer an
amendment to that bill to convert to a biennial budget and
appropriations cycle. We are writing to express support for
that amendment.
Biennial budgeting and appropriations is not a panacea for
all the ails the budget process. But a biennial cycle could
save time and resources in the Administration and on Capitol
Hill--time and resources that could be redirected to meet
high priority public service needs.
It would be a real boon if a biennial cycle results in
Congress and the Administration paying more attention to
authorizations and oversight.
Biennial budgeting also could save the country money,
though that is by no means certain. It does seem that every
new appropriations cycle provides opportunities to ratchet up
the baseline for federal expenditure.
We applaud your decision to stay with a one-year fiscal
year (and single-year appropriations) even as you move to a
biennial cycle. In all, we think your amendment is well
conceived and deserving of our former colleagues' support.
If you have any questions or if you need further
information, please call Carol Wait in the Committee's
office.
Best Regards,
Bill Frenzel.
Tim Penny.
____
Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget
Washington, DC, May 5, 2000.
Hon. Jim Nussle and
Hon. Ben Cardin,
House of Representatives
Washington, DC.
Dear Jim and Ben: We understand that the House will take up
the Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act of 1999 this
week. We are writing to express our strong support for that
legislation.
[[Page H3083]]
This bill will not fix everything that is wrong with the
budget process, but it is a giant step in the right
direction.
Perhaps most importantly, the Comprehensive Budget Process
Reform Act would change the current nonbinding concurrent
budget resolution to a joint budget resolution to be signed
or vetoed by the President. Once signed, the joint resolution
would have the force of law. The importance of this change
cannot be overstated. So long as the two policy branches of
government operate off of different plans, there really is no
such thing as a budget for the United States Government. This
is the source of most confusion attributed to baselines.
Some say that Congress and the President cannot resolve
their differences early in the budget process. We are
convinced that they can agree on the big pieces: aggregate
spending and revenues--mandatory and discretionary, defense
and non-defense spending totals--and expenditure caps. We
believe that such agreements could bring order to
consideration of spending, revenue and reconciliation bills.
The first time through this process may seem difficult; but
subsequent budget cycles should go more smoothly, because all
parties would have a tremendous incentive to act. Passing a
new budget would permit them to set new spending caps and
otherwise amend the most recently enacted budget law.
Who can argue against efforts to ameliorate the distortions
caused by so-called ``emergency provisions'' in existing law?
Not we, we think it is imperative for Congress to do
something about this problem before the budget process loses
all credibility. The Comprehensive Budget Reform Act would
require Congress and the President to budget for emergencies
and set up safeguards to keep the kinds of abuses abound
today from recurring.
Who can argue against greater accountability in Federal
spending? Discretionary spending is growing more rapidly than
at any other time since the Viet Nam War. The provisions of
this bill would not necessarily change that. It is not the
objective of budget process legislation to etch in stone
specific spending decisions. But the new law would require
regularized reauthorization of all spending laws, programs
and agencies and that should help to curb or eliminate lower
priority spending. Further, it would limit new entitlement
legislation. That is especially important as the time
approaches when we will not be able to pay current law Social
Security and Medicare benefits from dedicated tax receipts.
The changes that this bill would bring to budgeting for
long-term obligations and baseline calculations also are
desirable.
All in all, this is good legislation. We urge our former
colleagues to support it.
Best regards,
Bill Frenzel.
Tim Penny.
____
Americans for Tax Reform,
Washington, DC, May 16, 2000.
Hon. Jim Nussle,
Chairman, Budget Committee Task Force on Budget Process,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Nussle: Americans for Tax Reform is very
concerned about attempts to remove the legally binding joint
resolution provision from the Budget Process Reform Act.
We enthusiastically support changing the current non-
binding budget resolution into a legally enforceable joint
resolution passed by both houses of Congress. Such a joint
resolution, when signed by the president, will set the stage
for meaningful budget negotiations between the legislative
and executive branches at the beginning of the year, with
overall levels of spending being agreed to upfront.
Consequently, a joint resolution will avoid the type of
brinkmanship that has allowed spending levels to eventually
balloon far in excess of what was originally envisaged.
Taxpayers deserve a budget process that makes sense and
whose limits and outlines have the force of law. A joint
budget resolution will achieve that.
Sincerely yours,
Grover G. Norquist,
President.
______
The Concord Coalition,
Washington, DC, May 9, 2000.
Hon. Jim Nussle,
Hon. Ben Cardin,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Nussel and Mr. Cardin, The Concord Coalition is
pleased to lend its strong support to H.R. 853, the
Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act. We commend the
bill's sponsors for putting forward this bipartisan effort to
strengthen the budget process.
In particular, The Concord Coalition supports:
Changing the budget resolution from a concurrent resolution
that binds only Congress, but not the Administration, to a
joint resolution that requires the President's signature. The
allocation of constrained resources is a tough political
process, and the earlier in the year that agreement can be
reached on at least a general framework, the better.
Streamlining the budget resolution to just the major budget
enforcement categories and the aggregates. The parts of the
budget resolution that really matter and have teeth for
enforcement purposes are not the 20 budget functions but
rather the handful of limits that tell policy makers how much
money they have to work with during the ensuring year--total
spending, revenues, surplus or deficit, public debt,
mandatory spending, non-defense discretionary spending,
defense discretionary spending, and emergency spending. If
the budget resolution continued to require function-by-
function details, the Congress and the White House would
seldom be able to agree on a joint resolution, particularly
during times of divided party control. However, even with
different parties in control of different chambers or
branches of government, it should be possible most years to
agree on aggregates. If not, H.R. 853 allows the present
concurrent resolution process to kick in.
Setting up an advance reserve for emergencies in the budget
resolution, and tightening the definition of ``emergency'' to
a situation involving loss of life or property, or a threat
to national security, that is unanticipated--sudden, urgent,
unforeseen and temporary. Although we never know what
disaster or emergency lies ahead, it's safe to assume that
there will be one. Yet, year after year, insufficient funds
are appropriated through the regular appropriations process
to finance even an average level of disaster spending. Then,
when disaster strikes, the only way to provide relief is
through the emergency spending loophole. Abuse of this
loophole has become the most egregious and flagrant disregard
of the spirit of the budget process.
Entitlement reform measures including subjecting new
entitlements to annual appropriations, barring enactment of
new entitlements lasting longer than 10 years, requiring 10
year cost estimates, and requiring oversight review of all
programs, including existing entitlements, at least every
decade.
Reform of the budget rules for unfunded liabilities in
federal insurance programs to get a better handle on the
creation of new long-term insurance obligations or expansion
of existing ones. The current scoring procedures do not
accurately reflect the long-term federal liabilities
associated with various government insurance programs. H.R.
853 proposes setting up a new scoring and accounting system
for federal insurance programs to deal with these problems.
Some have argued that the budget process is not broken, and
does not need to be fixed. The Concord Coalition disagrees.
Lately, the closing days of the session have deteriorated
into a very costly and unstatesmanlike cross between a fiscal
food fight and a game of budgetary chicken in which the aim
of each side seems to be to inflict maximum political
embarrassment on the other while getting as much as possible
for one's own spending or tax priorities.
No amount of process reform can guarantee a better result.
But, in Concord's view, H.R. 853 focuses on the places where
budget enforcement has broken down most flagrantly--emergency
spending, end-game tactics, scoring of federal insurance
programs, lack of entitlement oversight, and lack of
enforcement of the existing budget discipline. You and the
other co-sponsors have worked hard to reach bipartisan
agreement on this important legislation. The Concord
Coalition congratulates you and looks forward to working with
you in the future.
Sincerely,
Robert L. Bixby,
Executive Director.
Council for Citizens
Against Government Waste,
Washington, DC, May 12, 2000.
Hon. Jim Nussle,
Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Representative Nussle: On behalf of the 600,000
members of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste
(CCAGW), I would like to express my support for the
Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act.
This legislation makes several significant reforms to the
federal budget process. By transforming the non-binding
concurrent budget resolution into a joint resolution, the
budget would become a document with the force of law. The
legislation provides further order to the budget process by
enabling Congress to adopt a concurrent budget resolution
under expedited procedures if the president vetoes the joint
budget resolution.
By creating an emergency reserve fund and clearly defining
what would qualify as an emergency, the legislation will
allow for expedited funding for truly unanticipated events
while preventing the manipulation of this designation for
other purposes. The Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act
also strengthens fiscal responsibility by requiring the
Budget Committee to certify that each spending bill is in
compliance with budgetary levels set forth by the budget
resolution, establishing regular authorization for government
programs, and prohibiting new spending programs from being
authorized for more than ten years at a time. Your
legislation also includes the requirement that new spending
requests are compared to actual previous levels.
I would also like to express my opposition to any amendment
that would weaken the reforms in your bill. Chief among these
is an amendment that may be offered which would prevent the
budget from having the force of law. It is in the interest of
the taxpayers that Congress and the president be bound by law
to certain spending limitations.
I appreciate your leadership on this important issue. CCAGW
urges your colleagues to support your legislation. The vote
on your bill will be among those considered for
[[Page H3084]]
CCAGW's 2000 Congressional Ratings. In addition, any
amendment offered that would strike the force of law
provision will also be considered for CCAGW's 2000
Congressional Ratings.
Sincerely,
Thomas Schatz.
____
Chamber of Commerce
of the United States of America,
Washington, DC, May 12, 2000.
Hon. Jim Nussle,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Representative Nussle: The U.S. House of
Representatives is expected to consider H.R. 853, the
Comprehensive Budget Reform Act sponsored by Representatives
Jim Nussle (R-IA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Porter Goss (R-FL)
in the next few days. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce urges you
to support this common-sense legislation.
This measure, the product of extensive bipartisan
negotiations and congressional hearings, will strengthen the
existing federal budget process and provide additional--and
needed--accountability of federal spending decisions.
Among its major provisions, this legislation establishes a
reserve fund to better budget for emergency needs; requires
more legislation be subjected to budgetary enforcement rules;
prohibits the consideration of legislation creating new
spending programs unless the authorization is for ten years
or less; and requires that both the President and Congress
better budget for many long-term unfunded federal
liabilities.
During consideration of H.R. 853, Representative David
Dreier is expected to offer a biennial budget amendment. The
U.S. Chamber of Commerce earlier this year testified before
the Committee on Rules in support of a biennial federal
budget and we strongly support the Dreier amendment. Biennial
budgeting would help streamline budget decisions and allow
the Congress and Federal agencies more time to manage and
oversee federal programs.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world's largest business
federation, representing more than three million
organizations of every size, sector, and region, urges you to
support H.R. 853 and the Dreier biennial budget amendment to
their eventual enactment into law.
Sincerely,
R. Bruce Josten.
____
Taxpayers for Common $ense,
Washington, DC, May 11, 2000.
Hon. Jim Nussle,
Hon. Ben Cardin,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Re: Support for H.R. 853
Dear Congressmen Nussle and Cardin: When the House
considers H.R. 853, the Comprehensive Budget Process Reform
Act, Taxpayers for Common Sense urges all members to support
this important bill. TCS believes that it represents a
valuable and serious effort by you and your bipartisan
cosponsors, to fix some of the worst things about the budget
process.
H.R. 853 should be called ``The Dire Emergency Budget
Process Reform Act of 2000.'' It is likely to be more
important than any similarly-named supplemental
appropriations bill that will be presented to the House this
year.
The budget process is broken. It is cluttered with numbers
that mostly count for nothing, like the budget function
subtotals. It ignores the annual reality that emergencies
happen. It allows unfunded federal insurance liabilities. It
puts too many programs on fiscal autopilot. Finally, it
generates debates and votes that resolve nothing. All of this
wastes time and political energy in Congress, as well as
taxpayer money. Your bill would address all of these
problems.
No one should believe that H.R. 853 or any other process
reform will guarantee fiscally responsible budgeting.
Ultimately, that results from a political will and
seriousness of purpose that have been lacking in Congress in
recent years on both sides of the aisle and in many different
congressional committees.
But no one should oppose H.R. 853 on the grounds that its
significant and badly-needed improvements in the budget
process would not be the perfect solution to all problems.
That would be a flimsy excuse, and process reform might
create a climate for progress on other fronts. We urge all
members to become part of the solution, and to support H.R.
853.
Sincerely,
Ralph DeGennaro,
President & CEO.
____
CapitolWatch,
Washington, DC, May 8, 2000.
Hon. Jim Nussle,
House of Representatives, Cannon House Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Representative Nussle: On behalf of the 250,000
supporters of CapitolWatch, I thank you for introducing H.R.
853, ``The Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act of 1999.''
H.R. 853 will create a better budget process by amending
the rules to encourage Congress and the President to agree on
a Joint Budget Resolution at the beginning of the budget
process. Such a resolution would help force Congress and the
President to keep within spending limits.
H.R. 853 will also stop Congress and the President from
passing additional spending outside the normal budget
process. The bill strictly defines ``emergency'' spending as
funding for the ``loss of life or property, or a threat to
national security'' and an ``unanticipated'' situation.
CapitolWatch believes that ``sunlight is the greatest
disinfectant'' and that H.R. 853 will allow the time needed
for a full and open debate on budget issues that will replace
the usual process--a hodgepodge omnibus bill negotiated at
the last minute with the possibility of a government
shutdown. CapitolWatch believes that H.R. 853 will bring
about a budget process that is less wasteful and leads to
more effective government.
CapitolWatch and its 250,000 citizen lobbyists are urging
all members of the House of Representatives to support your
bill. We wish you much success and look forward to assisting
you in the passage of this much-needed legislation.
Sincerely,
Andrew F. Quinlan,
Executive Director.
____
Council for Citizens
Against Government Waste,
Washington, DC, May 5, 2000.
Hon. Jim Nussle,
Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Representative Nussle: On behalf of the 600,000
members of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste
(CCAGW), I would like to express my support for the
Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act.
This legislation makes several significant reforms to the
federal budget process. By transforming the non-binding
concurrent budget resolution into a joint budget resolution,
the budget would become a document with the force of law. The
legislation provides further order to the budget process by
enabling Congress to adopt a concurrent budget resolution
under expedited procedures if the president vetoes the joint
budget resolution.
By creating an emergency reserve fund and clearly defining
what would qualify as an emergency, the legislation will
allow for expedited funding for truly unanticipated events
while preventing the manipulation of this designation for
other purposes. The Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act
also strengthens fiscal responsibility by requiring the
Budget Committee to certify that each spending bill is in
compliance with budgetary levels set forth by the budget
resolution, establishing regular authorization for government
programs, and prohibiting new spending programs from being
authorized for more than ten years at a time. Your
legislation also includes the requirement that new spending
requests are compared to actual previous levels.
We appreciate your leadership on this important issue.
CCAGW urges your House colleagues to support your
legislation. The vote on your bill will be among those
considered for CCAGW's 2000 Congressional Ratings.
Sincerely,
Thomas Schatz.
____
Americans for Tax Reform,
Washington, DC, May 8, 2000.
Hon. Jim Nussle,
House of Representatives, Cannon House Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Sir: Americans for Tax Reform would like to express its
support for your bill ``The Comprehensive Budget Process
Reform Act.'' This sound proposal would introduce fiscal
restraint to a frequently incoherent procedure that now aids
and abets profligate spending. Your legislation would not
only repair a faltering system, it would safeguard the
interests of our nation's overburdened taxpayers.
Most notably, your bill would make the all-important switch
from a concurrent budget resolution (which ultimately serves
to invite counterproductive and often pointless inter-branch
conflict) to a joint budget resolution. This would compel the
President and Congress to agree on overall levels of spending
at the beginning of the process, when consensus should be
reached, and not at the last possible moment, as is currently
done. Consequently, inserting superfluous spending provisions
into appropriations bills will be more tightly controlled.
This alone is ample reason to support your legislation.
In addition, your bill requires committees to reauthorize
the departments and programs under their purview every ten
years. Today, nearly every federal activity is underwritten
by its own essentially permanent and self-perpetuating
spending authority. As a result, Executive agencies have
license to automatically devour money. It's often been said
that the closest thing to immortality is a government
program. This is unfortunately true, but your bill would
render that witticism anachronistic.
Furthermore, your bill's measures for curtailing spurious
demands for ``emergency spending'' will save taxpayers
millions upon millions of dollars every year; no more
allocations for such ``unforeseen threats'' to the
commonwealth as dangerously non-existent parking garages. All
told, the Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act is a well-
constructed and perfectly reasonable proposal worthy of
passage.
We will seriously consider rating Congress' vote on this
bill. The time for budget reform is long overdue. We're glad
that you have taken the initiative to make it a reality.
Sincerely,
Grover Norquist.
[[Page H3085]]
____
National Taxpayers Union
Washington, DC, May 9, 2000.
Hon. Jim Nussle,
House of Representatives, Cannon House Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Congressman Nussle: On behalf of the 300,000-member
National Taxpayers Union, (NTU) I write to endorse H.R. 853,
the Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act, and to urge all
Members to work toward its passage.
The end of the year ``omnibus appropriation,'' ``emergency
spending,'' and ``supplemental appropriation'' bills that
have characterized Congressional budgeting and spending over
the last decade clearly demonstrate that the current budget
process used on Capitol Hill is incapable of instituting, or
ensuring, fiscal responsibility and discipline in Washington.
The result has been end of the year spending sprees initiated
by a President bent on hijacking the budget process in order
to spend the surpluses resulting from the hard work of
American taxpayers. Clearly, a mechanism for fiscal
responsibility in Washington is needed.
Your bill moves Washington in that direction. By giving
budgetary limitations the force of law, requiring clearly
distinguished standards for emergency spending, and requiring
accountability for federal programs, H.R. 853 will provide
some much needed restraint on the federal spending train that
is currently out of control.
Once again, NTU endorses the Comprehensive Budget Process
Reform Act, and encourages all Members to work toward its
passage.
Sincerely,
Eric V. Schlecht,
Director, Congressional Relations.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume,
and I thank my dear colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss),
for yielding me the appropriate time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule which fails to protect
veterans, student loans, and prescription drugs from possible
elimination. Last week, the Committee on Rules, my colleagues, refused
to make in order three excellent amendments that would have made great
improvements to this bill.
The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) offered an amendment to
exempt student loans from the sunset requirements in this bill. Without
the Holt amendment, our student loan programs are on the chopping block
every 10 years. And, Mr. Speaker, I believe that American families want
that program protected.
I believe they also want Medicare and prescription drug benefits
protected, and last week, the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley)
offered an amendment doing just that. But, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker,
the amendment of the gentlewoman from Nevada protecting Medicare was
also defeated by my Republican colleagues.
The gentleman from New York (Mr. Forbes) offered an amendment
protecting veterans programs from the chopping block, but my Republican
colleagues, once again, decided not to make his amendment in order
either.
So this budget process reform bill will endanger student loans,
Medicare, and veterans programs, and, Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that is
only the beginning. First of all, this bill changes the budget
resolution from a concurrent resolution to a joint resolution and, in
doing so, this bill slows down a process that is already too slow.
As long as one party controls the White House and one party controls
the Congress, there will never be serious negotiations on a budget
resolution. Mr. Speaker, different parties have no reason whatsoever to
compromise with one another at the budget resolution stakes of the
process.
As everyone knows, the budget resolution is only a political
statement, and I believe the majority in Congress should have the
opportunity to set out their own plan in the budget resolution. By
requiring the budget resolution be signed into law, my colleagues will
stall the appropriations process even further, while Congress and the
White House struggle and struggle to agree.
Mr. Speaker, as it is, our appropriations process takes far too long.
This joint resolution is going to make that deadline even more
difficult to make than it already is.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, this bill changes the way we designate
emergencies. Now, I agree that far too many spending programs are
falling under the category of emergency these days; programs like the
Census, which could hardly be called a surprise. But the reason for so
many nonemergencies being pushed into that category is because it is
impossible to live within the caps. Emergencies give Congress a way
around the caps. So until we have more realistic caps, Congress will
continue to resort to emergencies or some other gimmick no matter how
high we raise that bar.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I understand my chairman will offer an
amendment changing our budget to a biennial system. As I have said
before, many times, I believe biennial budgeting will encourage more
supplemental appropriation bills, it will weaken Congress' ability to
set budget priorities, and it will require decisions to be made much
too far in advance. It is hard enough to predict where we will need to
spend the money 1 month in advance much less 2 years in advance.
Although my colleagues made some changes in this bill which does
improve the bill tremendously, last week the Committee on Rules made in
order amendments to reverse those changes. They removed the dangerous
pay-go system that will endanger Social Security and Medicare, then
they made in order an amendment to restore it. They removed the
automatic continuing resolution which would make it easier to avoid
compromise, then they made an amendment in order to restore that, too.
Mr. Speaker, my Republican colleagues did not see fit to protect
Medicare, student loans, or veterans programs. They decided those
programs, like a lot of the spending programs, should be up for grabs
every 10 years, but they made in order amendments restoring portions of
the bill that they themselves decided were too unwise.
So, Mr. Speaker, I am asking my colleagues to stand up for student
loans, Medicare, veterans benefits and to oppose this rule.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa
(Mr. Nussle), who is indeed an author of this and has worked long and
hard, and in a very distinguished nonpartisan manner, to bring this
process to Members to debate.
Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time, and I want to start by giving my appreciation to my good friend
from Florida for his good work on the Committee on Rules, and for the
Committee on Rules as a whole, for their patience, for their
understanding, for the thoroughness in which they have conducted this
budget process, reform process.
That is really what we are talking about today, is process. As much
as there are a few Members in our body that are rushing to the floor
now at the last minute wanting to inject into this a certain level of
political substance, let me caution Members that this has been a
bipartisan process which has not gone to the level of political
substance or political theater.
I would suggest that while there are many viewpoints on exactly how
the budget process should be conducted, exactly how our budget should
be arrived at, we have, in this process with the Committee on Rules,
with the Committee on the Budget, with the Committee on Appropriations,
stayed completely away from substantive outcome determinant procedures.
This is outcome neutral in its process.
I had to describe this to a group of kids back home in Iowa, and they
wanted to find out what I was going to be working on this week. And
budget process reform, quite honestly, is pretty much a yawn, I would
have to suggest. Even the gentleman from Massachusetts would probably
agree with me on that. But I told them, I said, it is a lot like when
we play the game Monopoly. We dust off the board game, Monopoly, and we
open it up and look on the back of the box and it never tells us who is
going to win the game. It never says one player gets to pass go and
collect $200 but another does not; one specific player gets to be the
shoe today and another gets to be the thimble. Nowhere in the game do
we see that. And that is what we have tried to preserve here too.
The gentleman from Massachusetts is correct when he stated that we do
not protect specifically prescription drugs or Social Security or
student loans, nor do we protect the United States Capitol building.
According to our budget process reform, there is nothing in there that
prevents us from
[[Page H3086]]
tearing it down and moving it to maybe even Des Moines, Iowa. In fact,
we could get rid of the Energy Department, according to this. There is
no protection in there for Energy, no protection for the Commerce
Department, no protection in there for any of the programs, the
bureaucracies, the agencies, the departments, the buildings, and, even
for that matter, the people within them. We could eliminate all sorts
of budgets within this. There are no special protections.
There is a reason for that. We do not want to determine the outcome.
We want Congress to work its will. But we also believe it needs to be
real. The gentleman from Massachusetts said this is nothing but a
political document. That is what is wrong. That is what is wrong. From
the time this bill was first introduced, back in 1974, when the
Committee on the Budget was first established, when the budget process
was first established, it was established because the Committee on
Appropriations, the Committee on Ways and Means, the Congress as a
whole could not come together and understand what the final outcome was
going to look like.
It established a reconciliation process, so that before anything
began, everyone had to sit down and look and see what it was going to
look like, just like a normal home budget would look like. What are we
going to spend, generally, how much money are we taking in, how much
money do we think we should expend. The Committee on Appropriations
should be allowed to put in the details. The Committee on Ways and
Means should be allowed and have the power to put in the details. But
someone had to come in and put an umbrella over the entire document,
and that is the reason why the Committee on the Budget and the budget
process was first instituted.
So the question today is, is the process broken? Yes, the process is
broken. We should not mess with a process if it is not broken. But go
back and pick a year, any year my colleagues want to pick in the last
decade, except for 1997, interestingly enough, and I will come back to
that. Pick a year, any year, and every single year there was chaos,
there were train wrecks, there were final negotiations at Andrews Air
Force Base between the Congress and the President scrambling, with
sometimes only three people in the room. And I see the smiles on the
faces. Sometimes the Democrats were in the majority and it was the
Republicans in control of the White House.
Neither side can be happy with the current process that gets us to a
train wreck. So we said what year worked? 1997 worked. Why did it work?
Why did we finally get to a balanced budget for the first time in 40
years? Because the Congress and the President sat down early in the
process and came up with a memorandum of agreement that decided what
the big picture was going to look like; how much money were we taking
in in taxes; how much generally we were going to expend in spending;
what was the national debt going to look like; what was Social Security
going to look like, and they put together a memorandum of agreement.
The big picture.
From that, we had success. We wrote this bill to encourage that
success in the future, and that is why we should support this rule and
this bill.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Hall), a member of the Committee on Rules.
Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley) for yielding me this time.
This rule makes in order the Dreier amendment. Actually, it is the
Dreier-Luther-Regula-Hall amendment, which establishes a 2-year budget
process for Congress and the administration. As a former member of the
Ohio General Assembly, which follows a 2-year budget process, I learned
the value of considering budgets on a 2-year cycle instead of devoting
each year to spending bills.
In 1982, shortly after joining the House Committee on Rules, I was
appointed to a task force on the budget process. At that time, I
favored a biennial budget, and since then I have not changed my mind.
Passing budgets and appropriation bills for 2 years will increase
funding stability, permitting more efficient management of government
programs. It will also reduce the amount of time Congress spends on
considering the appropriation bills, allowing us to spend more time on
serious problems that we have with oversight.
{time} 1315
Under the current budget process, we are constantly missing deadlines
for making decisions on spending. Moreover, our record on oversight in
the last few years is poor. Many have blamed the unacceptable
performance on the lack of time we have to spend on oversight.
A 2-year budget process should free up time for House Members to
spend on oversight. Properly carried out, oversight will give Congress
greater insight into the execution of the laws that we pass and improve
Government performance.
The biennial budget process amendment has support on both sides of
the aisle. It is an experiment worth trying.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I am again privileged to yield such time as he
may consume to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr.
Dreier), the chairman of the Committee on Rules.
(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by extending my
congratulations, since he is walking out of the Chamber, I am going to
mention him first, and that is to my very good friend the gentleman
from Ohio (Mr. Hall) and fellow member of the Committee on Rules.
Now that he is out of the chamber, the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Goss) is still here; so I would say that the distinguished vice-
chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Goss), has done a great job.
And even though he is no longer in the chamber, I am going to say the
name of the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle). He did a spectacular job
in his presentation that he just made here. Maybe he is in the
cloakroom and is able to hear my words here.
There are a lot of people who have spent a great deal of time working
on this issue of budget process reform, and we are beginning what is
clearly an historic debate. For the first time in over a decade, the
House will debate fundamental reform of the budget process.
The bill that we will be making in order with this rule is a product
of the work of both the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on
Rules and the efforts that we have put in for a long time. It also
represents a landmark process in which those two committees of
jurisdiction over the budget process have come together in a bipartisan
manner. And I have got to stress that word ``bipartisan'' again.
The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) has been working for years
and years on this with the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and with
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) and with the rest of us, and it
is due to their spectacular leadership that we have gotten to the point
where we are today.
As the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) said just a few minutes ago,
it is very clear that the budget process that we have now does not
work. It is a disorganized patchwork of decades' old rules and laws.
The bipartisan Comprehensive Budget Reform Act will make the process
more rational, it improves accountability, and it strengthens
enforcement in the budget process. Is it a panacea to all the ailments
of society? No. Is it a cure-all for all of the challenges that we face
on the budget process? No. But I will tell my colleagues, it is a very,
very important step, which enjoys, again, bipartisan support.
One item in here I will say, as a Californian, that I think is a very
important aspect is the issue of dealing with natural disasters. We all
know that they are a fact of life, whether it is hurricanes in Florida,
or ice storms in upstate New York, or floods in Iowa, or in my home
State we all know what we get, we get earthquakes in California, we
know that there is going to be some kind of disaster and it will have
an impact on the budget.
This bill requires the President and the Congress to face reality and
set
[[Page H3087]]
aside a disaster reserve fund within the budget. We do not need to pit
the victims of Mother Nature against those who desire sound fiscal
policies. This is just one of the many sensible reforms that have been
put into place in this bill.
The rule also makes in order a number of amendments for Members with
very, very diverse views on this issue. Such amendments include
biennial budgeting, which the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall) mentioned
and I will be offering later, an automatic continuing resolution, and
pay-go.
All of these amendments are very important reform issues, and they
deserve to be fully and openly considered in this debate, which is what
this rule actually does.
Now, I will take just a moment to talk about this issue which I feel
so strongly about, and that is the question of biennial budgeting. That
process could lead to the most significant change in the budget process
that we have had in over a quarter century. Really, since the 1974
Budget Empowerment Act was put into place, biennial budgeting would be
the most sweeping reform.
The enormous amount of resources that are expended by the executive
branch in preparing multiple annual budgets at the same time would be
diverted to long-term strategic planning and improving the performance
of Federal programs. Again, this effort is put together with strong
bipartisan support and enjoys the strong support of President Clinton,
who, in his budget submission earlier this year, called for biennial
budgeting.
Vice President Al Gore, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the
President of the United States, he is a strong proponent of biennial
budgeting.
Governor George Bush of Texas, the presumptive nominee and I hope the
next President of the United States, is in fact a strong proponent. He
has a 2-year budget process in Texas and believes that we should do it
here in Washington, D.C.
When combined with other significant bipartisan budget reforms
contained in the base bill, I believe that the biennial budget
amendment which I will be offering represents a whole package of very
comprehensive reforms.
I urge my colleagues to resist the harsh partisan politics and to
come together on what will be, as I said, a significant Government
reform package that will benefit the American taxpayers. There will be
tremendous taxpayer dollars saved if we can move in the direction of
bringing about biennial budgeting and some of these other budget
process reform issues.
So I want to again congratulate all of those who have been involved:
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
Hall), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), the gentleman from
Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and others who have worked on this measure and to
congratulate them for their hard work and to say that I urge my
colleagues to vote in favor of this rule that we will be offering and
also in favor of the budget process reform package and vote ``yes'' on
the biennial budgeting amendment.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New
York (Mr. Forbes), the author of one of the amendments.
(Mr. FORBES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the
time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule and,
unfortunately, in opposition to this bill, a bill that enjoys
bipartisan opposition.
Like many of my colleagues, I certainly want to see us reform the
budget process so all Americans can understand how we are spending
their tax dollars.
Sadly, this bill does nothing to make the process better. Instead, I
would suggest, it is going to make it worse. And nothing, I might add,
nothing in this bill would end the annual political standoff that we
see, the so-called train wrecks that characterize this budget process.
There is nothing in this bill that would end those kind of stalemates.
Unfortunately, this bill would give to the executive an inordinate
amount of power. Currently, in these coequal branches of Government, we
have the right of the executive to offer up his or her budget and the
right of the legislature to, in turn, offer up their budget and then
negotiate. But to require a joint resolution is to abdicate to the
President an inordinate amount of power that takes away from the
legislature its right to do the budgeting. I think that is
inappropriate.
I regret that this rule does not contain an amendment that I think is
necessary. It takes a certain program for veterans and makes it
uncertain. The majority would have us believe, for some reason, that
they do not do this. But I would remind my colleagues that in this bill
that we will be soon debating, this bill protects the certainty of
Social Security while at the same time opening up an uncertainty for
veterans' programs, for Medicare programs, and others.
I had offered an amendment, frankly, that I hoped would be in
bipartisan spirit accepted so that we could tell our veterans'
community that, as we try to reform a budget process, we are not going
to every 10 years subject them to the possible elimination of veterans'
programs or Medicare programs.
So I find it curious that they went to a great degree here to protect
Social Security programs but they would not protect the Medicare
programs, they would not protect the veterans' programs. I think this
is a major weakness of this bill. It suggests to our veterans'
community that the budget reform process is somehow more important than
protecting a compact that we made with veterans so long ago.
I urge my colleagues to look at the mail in their office from many
veterans' organizations who are concerned about the tenuous nature that
this leaves their programs in. I urge my colleagues to defeat this
rule, to allow the committee to go back to the drawing board, include
some protections for veterans, include protections for senior citizens,
and then take another look at this budget reform process and start over
again, take the good things out of it like emergency spending
reservations and some of the things that we might want to get done
here.
Let us reform the process, but let us not make it worse, as this
legislation would do. It would not avoid the annual train wrecks, the
standoffs that we see between the President and the Congress; and I
think it is a fallacy to suggest otherwise.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining on both
sides, please?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barrett of Nebraska). The gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Goss) has 15 minutes remaining. The gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley) has 21 minutes remaining.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas).
(Mr. GEKAS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the
time.
Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Rules, very properly in my judgment,
has acceded to my request long-standing now to include in the debate on
the new budget process an amendment which would bring about forever an
end to Government shutdowns.
Lest there be anybody in the United States or in the western
hemisphere who does not recognize the possibility and reality of a
Government shutdown in the United States, let me remind everyone, for
the record, that, in the last 20 years, more than 17 times the
Government of the United States was at shutdown or near shutdown
because of the inability of the Congress to pass appropriations bills
and complete the budgets by September 30, the last day of the fiscal
year.
What happens in that case? When the budget is not completed, the next
day, October 1, the Government automatically shuts down.
How have we prevented that in the past when we have prevented it? By
passing temporary continuing resolutions to keep the flow of
appropriations going until the negotiations can be completed for a new
budget to be adopted.
Well, that always leads to a further deadline and yet another
deadline; and
[[Page H3088]]
each time that deadline appears for the completion of a budget, lo and
behold, Government shutdown or a threat of Government shutdown.
What does that mean?
It means not just that the Smithsonian Institute has to shut its
doors, as happened several times while tourists are waiting to get in
and unable to do so because the Smithsonian Institute is out of
business with a Government shutdown, as is every other institution of
our Government.
That is so embarrassing and so shameful and so inappropriate that my
legislation has to be passed simply to avoid the shame of a Government
shutdown.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman and colleague from Michigan (Mr. Smith).
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding me the time.
Mr. Speaker, it is so important that we discuss and debate how we can
improve the budget and the budget process.
Right now we are approaching $1.8 trillion in annual spending. We are
dealing with overspending in the past that has left us with
approximately a $5.7 trillion total national debt.
We are going to talk about ways we can improve this process. We are
going to talk about the hopeful ideas to increase the efficiency of
budgeting and spending. But the bottom line is the intestinal fortitude
and the will of the Members of Congress to do a better job.
It does not make any difference if we have a 2-year budget with
biennial or 1 year. I think biennial, by the way, shifts more power to
the administrative branch. It does not matter if we have supplemental
appropriations bills. It boils down to the determination, the will
power to do a better job in the way we spend taxpayer dollars. That is
the bottom line.
The debate is going to be good. I congratulate the Committee on Rules
for getting this before us.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member of the Committee on
Appropriations.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the
time.
Mr. Speaker, before any of us can speak on this floor, we first have
to take an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States.
That Constitution was created by our Founding Fathers because they
had a huge suspicion of power, especially executive power. That is why
they created an Article I of the Constitution, the Congress of the
United States, an independent branch of Government. And to keep it
independent and to make certain that we would never have excess power
in the hands of the executive, they lodged in this institution the
power of the purse.
{time} 1330
Today if we pass this proposal, we are walking away from our
constitutional obligation to defend the power of the purse. The
chairman of the Committee on Rules is absolutely right. There is
absolutely nothing partisan about this debate. This is a debate about
power and the use and misuse of power and how you best maintain checks
on that use of power.
I think there are two fundamental problems with this proposition.
First of all, because we create a joint resolution instead of a
concurrent resolution when the budget resolution passes, that means for
the first time the President imposes himself right in the middle of
Congress' obligation to define its own budget resolution. So the
President gets two kicks at the cat: once when he submits his budget
and then another when he puts together a huge budget summit out at
Andrews or some other place like they have been in the past, and the
President will come to totally dominate that debate. And every rank and
file Member of this place will be on the outside looking in, passing
notes in, hoping that a handful of people on the inside will give them
an occasional listen. We do not want to do that.
Secondly, it will enhance the power of the Senate vis-a-vis the
House. The House has a Committee on Rules but the Senate runs on
unanimous consent and a system of holds, and in order to get anything
done in the Senate, the Senate leadership is going to be vulnerable to
having any Senate chairman come to them and say, ``I'm not going to
vote for your budget resolution unless you add my authorization bill to
the budget resolution,'' and you will have a huge incentive to have
everything but the kitchen sink added in the Senate.
Secondly, we have another problem with this proposition, and that is
2-year budgeting. Right now every year, every agency of government has
to justify every action to the people's representatives. What will
happen if we move to a system of 2-year budgeting is that we will move
to a system of permanent supplementals and it is far more difficult to
control spending on supplementals than it is on regular appropriation
bills, because again in the House we have a germaneness rule, but in
the Senate there is no germaneness rule. And so they can add virtually
anything they want. That in my view weakens the House vis-a-vis the
Senate; it allows Senators to add amendment after amendment and project
after project. House Members will not have that same privilege or
opportunity. And most of all, it makes the agencies of government even
more independent of legislative power than they are right now. Because
once you have passed an agency budget, they have their money for a 2-
year period and they do not have to come to this House for anything.
Now, Members will say, ``Well, but if you have supplementals, they'll
have to come back here for those.'' That is true. But supplementals are
always to add money to their programs. They are programmatic
supplementals. They have nothing whatsoever to do with agency staffing
levels, agency bureaucratic structure, and so they will have been able
to pocket what they want on the administrative end of their budgets,
and that means that they will be far more immune to the legitimate
Congressional questioning of their actions than they are right now. I
think in the end that makes this institution fundamentally weaker in
constitutional terms than it is right now, both vis-a-vis the executive
branch of government and vis-a-vis the other body. I think both actions
would be a mistake.
I would urge the House to cast a bipartisan ``no'' on this
proposition when we get the opportunity.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Nevada (Ms. Berkley).
Ms. BERKLEY. Mr. Speaker, last week I appeared before the Committee
on Rules to focus attention on one section of H.R. 853 that threatens
to undermine the American public's confidence in Medicare. I am
referring to provisions in title IV that require authorizing committees
to establish a schedule for sunsetting and reauthorizing all mandatory
spending programs, including Medicare, over 10 years and that limit the
authorization of any new mandatory program to 10 years.
Congress needs to ensure that taxpayers' funds are spent wisely.
However, the authorizing committees already have both the
responsibility and authority to conduct such oversight. Lack of
effective oversight is not a consequence of the way that the budget
process operates. Nor is it due to the permanent authorization of
fundamental programs such as Medicare. In fact, the authorizing
committees regularly review the programs under their jurisdiction and
report legislation updating them.
The Committee on Ways and Means has regularly held hearings on
Medicare and has proposed a number of reforms in recent years to
modernize the program. For instance, we are now considering creating a
prescription drug benefit for seniors that would, I hope, become part
of Medicare. Why would we want to create the uncertainty of limiting a
prescription drug benefit to only 10 years? And why should Medicare
itself be put on a schedule that might call into doubt the future of
the program? Such outcomes would do little good and possibly great
harm.
For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote against this
legislation that weakens our existing budget process, our committees
and the entire Congress and brings uncertainty to such programs like
Medicare that millions of older Americans depend on for their very
survival. I am puzzled and dismayed that my colleagues on the Committee
on Rules refused to consider my amendment to exclude mandatory spending
programs such as
[[Page H3089]]
Medicare from this measure. I urge a ``no'' vote on this legislation.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 3 minutes to the
distinguished gentleman from the great State of Delaware (Mr. Castle),
the former governor.
Mr. CASTLE. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in total support of the rule which I think allows
amendments, some of which I will support, some of which I will not, but
really in strong support of the legislation. I have been sitting here
listening to this debate and it is sort of like inside baseball only it
is inside Congress where we have various Members of Congress standing
up and saying, well, this committee is going to have to give up
jurisdiction or power to another committee, we have other people
getting up and saying that the most likely things to always be
reauthorized such as Medicare and veterans benefits and others may be
threatened if we do away with this in 10 years, which is nonsense, that
is never going to happen.
My view is the public really does not care about this. What the
public cares about is that we spend their money wisely. The public also
cares greatly that we sit down with the President of the United States
and that together, even though we are in different parties and have
differences of opinion, which we should, that we sit down and we work
out a budget process which is fiscally sound and which accommodates the
problems that exist in the United States of America. They are not
interested in the committee fights. They are not interested in the
politics of Congress. They are not interested in the politics of
Washington. They are interested in good spending of their money.
Believe me, this legislation, this process, budget process reform
legislation more than any legislation I have seen since I have been
here incorporates, particularly with some of the amendments which are
hopefully going to be addressed to it, the aspects of budgeting which
would make a huge difference in terms of how we present ourselves to
the public by making sure that the money we spend is not just for the
district of a particular Member of Congress or committee or whatever it
may be but in the best interests of the people of the United States of
America. So I applaud all those people who put it together.
I would like particularly to address just one aspect of it because I
do not have unlimited time, and that is the emergency spending
provisions. I have been pushing for this since I arrived in the
Congress some 7 or 8 years ago now, because I am a strong believer that
we should limit how we spend emergency spending. In 1994, we passed
legislation to prevent nonemergency spending from being added to
emergency spending bills. That sounded all well and good at the time. I
thought it was a good act until I realized you can call anything an
emergency here in the House of Representatives.
What is the problem with emergency spending? The problem is it is
completely unrestricted, it is very open-ended, there is no
accountability for it. You do it on requests that come in from various
sources, States, in the case of emergencies, military or whatever it
may be. There are absolutely no limits. It is not counted against the
other money which we have spent. We do not appropriate it. In spite of
the fact they do that in virtually every State in this country, we do
not do it in the Congress of the United States. This is extra money
which is added to the debt that we have in this country. So as a matter
of course, I think we are taking the wrong steps with respect to how we
are handling emergency spending.
How do we do this? We basically set forth in this legislation a sum
of money equal to a 5-year rolling average, we set up a group which
will look at that, will look at the emergencies as they come in, make
the decisions, make sure that the appropriations are made through our
regular appropriations process, not added to the debt and then they
will do the accounting as that money is spent. It is pretty simple, it
is a little more complex than that, but it is the way to go.
It is a good bill, that is a good measure, it is something we should
pass, it is bipartisan, and I hope we get a strong bipartisan vote in
favor of the rule and the bill.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 4 minutes to the
distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), who has been
instrumental in providing a good deal of the substance for this
particular piece of legislation.
Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time. It is in fact my purpose to rise to thank the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Goss) and the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), who
chaired the budget task force that produced this product, along with
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and, of course, the gentleman
from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), the chairman of the Committee on the Budget,
and also the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), who did such good
work on this in his capacity as a member of the task force, and the
gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the Committee
on Rules. All of the people who are associated with this project are
owed a great debt of gratitude by the Members of this House and indeed
by the other body as well, because proposals to overhaul the badly
broken budget process have been under debate and under consideration in
this Congress for as long as I have been here.
I came to Congress 12 years ago, having already spent 2 years working
as a lawyer for President Reagan in the White House trying to overhaul
our badly broken budget process. President Reagan in 1986 appointed a
White House working group on budget process reform, a Cabinet level
working group, that put together many of the recommendations that have
found their way into this legislation.
I did not know at the time that 2 years later I would be a Member of
this House myself, but in my initial term in Congress I was the cochair
of a task force on budget process reform that produced legislation very
similar to this that had over 100 sponsors the first year that it was
introduced. I introduced that legislation in successive Congresses. In
the 105th Congress it had over 200 sponsors. The legislation was
introduced and authored on the Senate side, in the other body, by the
gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Lott).
What is before us right now is not about Republicans and Democrats.
It is not about more spending or less spending. It is not about higher
taxes or lower taxes. It is about doing business properly, in an
organized way. It means that we are going to have a budget first and
spending second. In this legislation, it is made very plain that we are
not to get to the business of spending money until we have agreed
between the executive branch and the legislative branch on the outer
limits of what we think we can afford. It is the same way that anyone
would produce a budget in the private sector, in a nonprofit
organization or in your own home.
In Congress, too often for many years we have simply spent money on
what we considered to be worthy projects and added it up at the end to
find out what our budget was. Our budget was nothing more or less than
the residue of all those small decisions, or all those relatively small
decisions. Our budget, since 1974, has been a nonbinding resolution.
{time} 1345
We can ignore it if we please. We can even not pass a budget if we
please. We have supplemental bills that come to the floor whenever
there is a natural disaster that break the budget. If we happen to have
a horrible earthquake or flood in a given year, no provision is made
for it, no forethought, as if these things had never happened before in
our country. So, in a cash budget, all of the money runs out of
operations in that current year.
None of these things is consistent with the way a significant
substantial operation in America today conducts its business. Least of
all, is this the way a trillion dollar annual enterprise should run its
business? The Budget Process Reform Act, which I am very, very happy to
see come to the floor under this rule, gives us an opportunity, a first
opportunity after many, many years of effort, to rationalize all of
this work that we do here.
Also one more important thing needs to be said about this: The
process will become increasingly transparent, understandable to our
constituents. The budget process has been very arcane in the past.
Making it clearer for everyone to understand inside of Congress and
outside of Congress is yet another noble objective of this legislation.
[[Page H3090]]
Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the rule for being broad and including
many amendments, and I want to commend the legislation to all of my
colleagues.
Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman
from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).
Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. I speak on one aspect
of the bill and the rule, and, although it is only one aspect, I think
it is a serious enough problem that it warrants the rejection of the
rule. The Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act, H.R. 853, contains
serious problems that I think could actually weaken Congress' ability
to budget. Unfortunately, the rule before us today does nothing to
improve this flawed bill.
Last week I proposed an amendment before the Committee on Rules to
address one section of the legislation that is particularly troubling,
the section that calls for Federal mandatory spending programs to be
sunsetted. Others have addressed this problem today. If this language
becomes law, important benefits that our constituents rely on,
Medicare, veterans' benefits, student loans, will lose their permanence
and their existence will be made subject to the whims of future
Congresses.
My amendment would have exempted the Federal student loan programs
from these provisions. Unfortunately, the amendment was not made in
order.
Now, many of us would like to see improvements in the budget process.
I sit on the Committee on the Budget and I can imagine some
improvements we should make. But I do not believe a majority of
Members, Republican, Democratic or independent, really believe that the
problems in the budget process are due to the permanent authorization
of essential programs such as student loans.
The Committee on Rules should have, I think, shown more willingness
to work in a bipartisan fashion and allowed my amendment to be
considered. The people we represent, America's students and their
parents, need to know that the Federal student loan program will be
there when they need it. These programs and the legislation that
created them were designed to give stability and certainty to the
financial future planning process. Their existence should not be
subject to the whims of a future Congress and President, regardless of
which party is in power.
We want our families to plan ahead for college education for their
children, and they should know that the student loan program will be
around for the long term. They should know that the student loan
program will be around for the long term, that they can count on it for
their future planning.
Mr. Speaker, for these reasons, I urge my colleagues to defeat the
rule, so that my amendment and other amendments to improve this bill
may be offered.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham).
Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
California.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barrett of Nebraska). The gentleman from
California (Mr. Cunningham) is recognized for 2 minutes.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. We
have bipartisan support in opposition to this bill.
I think the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) spoke eloquently
about some of the pitfalls of the existing conditions of the bill as it
exists right now. My friend, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle),
talked about exchange of power and that our people do not care. Well,
the framers of the Constitution understood that too much power in the
hands of a single source will corrupt, and it will.
I want to tell my friends on the other side of the aisle, it is a
very frustrating process, both for them and for us as well, but I think
the framers of the Constitution understood that, and it should be
difficult to pass things, because if too much power on the left is
there, too much power on the right is there, then it is going to be
lopsided, and the framers understood that it should be difficult so
that no single group can tilt the scales.
Is it frustrating? Absolutely. But the gentleman from Missouri (Mr.
Gephardt) talks about in-house, he says ``Republicans are our
adversary; the Senate is our enemy.'' That is because a single Senator
can stop legislation over there. That is too much power in one hand.
This body is going to attempt to do the same thing by shifting the
power to the White House.
Imagine, the President's budget failed 425 to 2 in this body, and 94
to 6 in the Senate because it was a political bill, too much power. Can
you imagine what would have happened if we had given that power to the
White House?
The Constitution, under Article I, says that Congress shall initiate
spending bills. By that, the President has two whacks at it. As has
been mentioned before, that is a spreading of power, and that is good.
What this bill attempts to do I believe is wrong. I would support the
Gekas amendment.
Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman
from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), the ranking minority member on the
Committee on the Budget.
(Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I would be the first to admit that the budget process
needs an overhaul, but not this overhaul, not this bill, for many
reasons. It is not the right fix. Parts of it I agree with, but many
parts of it not only are not the right fix, I think they would be
counterproductive.
Back in 1990, we sat down in earnest with the budget process as part
of the budget summit agreement, and we made some budget process changes
that laid the foundation for deficit reduction throughout the last
decade and for the surpluses that we enjoy today. We adopted what we
call a ``pay-as-you-go'' rule, a pay-go rule, with respect to tax cuts
and entitlements. Basically, we said nobody can worsen the deficit. If
you want to propose a tax cut, you have got to have an offsetting tax
increase or an offsetting decrease or cut in entitlement, or permanent
spending, and if you want to add to or liberalize the entitlement
benefit, you have to identify a revenue stream to pay for it or
diminish some other entitlement benefit so it is deficit neutral.
This rule served us well. But recently, in recent years, we have
flouted it, and flouted it with impunity. We started this budget year,
this legislative session, with a major tax cut bill.
I stood right here in the well of the House and said this bill
violates pay-go. It also violates section 303(a) of the Congressional
Budget Act, which basically says that pieces of legislation of this
significance, whether they are spending legislation or tax legislation,
will not be considered until we have a budget resolution. It was
ignored.
Now, today, we bring this bill to the House floor which would change
the architecture of our budget process, and yet the most significant
fault right now, the most significant fault with our budget process, is
the fact that the discretionary spending ceilings that we established
back in 1990, set again in 1993, reset again in 1997, are an
anachronism today. They are out of date.
The ceiling which we legislated several years ago for fiscal year
2001 is $541 billion. The 302 allocation to the Committee on
Appropriations and the budget resolution that the Congress passed
exceeds that ceiling by $60 billion. That is not small change. That is
not a non-trivial excess.
The 302 allocation is $600.3 billion, $60 billion above the ceiling.
We have got that problem, and the consequence of it, if we do not do
something about it, is sequestration, an automatic process we set up
for across-the-board cuts. The committee and the Congress were able to
avoid it by function 920, unallocated cuts in the budget resolution.
That is just treading water. We have got that problem.
We today started the appropriations process with the military
construction appropriations bill. The first order of business, if we
are starting the appropriations process, should be to adjust these
ceilings, because we all know that the appropriators are not going to
cut those 13 bills down to $541 billion. They will be lucky to bring
them in at $600.3 billion.
If we were earnest, sincere about amending the budget process, we
would
[[Page H3091]]
do something about the pay-go rule and violations like the bill we
brought to the floor where section 303(a) was just totally ignored, and
we would do something right now, here and now, with the most immediate
and relevant problem with the budget process, and that is, the fact
that we are well above, inevitably going to be far above, the
discretionary spending ceiling, and we are going to trigger
sequestration.
That is the order of business today, and that is why we ought to vote
down this rule and get down to what we really should be doing in the
way of budget process and budgeting.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote no on the previous question.
If the previous question is defeated, I will offer an amendment to make
in order three amendments: An amendment by the gentlewoman from Nevada
(Ms. Berkley) to protect any new prescription drug benefits and
Medicare programs; an amendment by the gentleman from New York (Mr.
Forbes) to protect veterans benefits; and an amendment by the gentleman
from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) to protect student loan programs.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the
amendment I will offer in the Congressional Record, to appear
immediately before the vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Massachusetts?
There was no objection.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote no on the
previous question.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida is recognized for
4 minutes.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I will just take a minute to close up here.
Mr. Speaker, first of all I think that the gentleman from Wisconsin
(Mr. Obey) hit it pretty well on the head in his remarks that this is
really not a partisan matter, and it is certainly not a partisan rule.
Consequently, I cannot think of a reason not to support the rule. The
rule is, I think, a good rule, and it clearly will get us to the
debate, which is the purpose of rules.
We have been having a lot of conversation here and testimony about
the elements and the substance of the legislation. The purpose is to
get that forward into the debate mode, and that is what this rule
purports to do.
I think obviously there are differing opinions on the various pieces
that we have talked about on our budget process reform. We know we need
some reform. Some think it is too much, some think it is too little,
some think we have the right pieces, some think we have the wrong
pieces. Obviously, we should have the debate. The rule gets us to the
debate. I suggest we follow the logic of that, vote for the rule, get
on with the debate and vote up or down the pieces you like or do not
like.
As for some concerns we have heard a little bit about here on these
three carveouts that were not made in order in the Committee on Rules,
I suppose it would have been possible to make a bunch of carveouts for
special elements and special programs. I do not know where one stops
and starts that process. Do we leave out the environmentalist issues?
Do we leave out the defense issues? Do we leave out one program or
another at the expense of another? It seemed to us on the Committee on
Rules, at least on the majority side, if you give one carveout, you
tilt the budget process. We are talking about budget process reform,
with a clean slate. Consequently, we did not make those amendments in
order.
Now, those amendments have been, I believe, mischaracterized, perhaps
inadvertently, as sunset. I do not believe the word ``sunset'' shows up
anywhere, and I think if you go to your word processor, I do not think
you are going to find any program sunsetted, certainly not veterans or
students or the Medicare programs.
So I would suggest what is happening here is that perhaps over some
confusion about the word ``sunset,'' which is not warranted in any way,
that what we are calling for in budget process reform is enhanced
transparency, enhanced accountability and enhanced oversight.
{time} 1400
Now, if enhanced oversight, that is reviewing programs every 10 years
or so, which is kind of the thing we are sent here to do on behalf of
the people we represent who pay us our salaries, is threatening, then
that is a debate we can have; but I suggest that really our
responsibility is to make sure the taxpayers' dollars are being used
wisely, and I believe that is called oversight.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. GOSS. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct. I used the word
``sunset'' when I should have said ``sunset like.'' It was not a
sunset; it was just looking at it after 10 years and then deciding
whether to sunset it.
Mr. GOSS. Reclaiming my time, I appreciate the clarification. The
brilliance of it, I am sure, will shine through immediately to
everybody.
In any event, there is no sunsetting and the fact that we are
reviewing programs every 10 years, I hope, does not come as an alarm
bell. I hope it comes as confidence that Congress is doing its job.
That is, as I said, what we are supposed to be here for.
I do not feel that there is anything except politics involved in
these things that suggest even that somehow veterans' programs are
going to not survive after 10 years or students' programs or so forth.
It reminds me of those Meals on Wheels scares and the school lunch
scares that we went through a few years ago that were made out of,
well, I guess I will not say what they were made out of but they were
not true, and I do not think that these are serious worries. I think
these are perhaps political debating points and they do not deserve
much attention.
Therefore, I am going to ask that we move the previous question and
we support the move for the previous question and then we support the
rule and then we support those elements of this good legislation that
we like.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, the amendment to H. Res. 499 that I
previously spoke of is as follows:
Amendment to be Offered if the Previous Question is Defeated
Amendment to H. Res. 499, Providing for the Consideration of H.R. 853
On page 3, line 8 after ``Rules'' add ``or in section 2 of
this resolution'' and at the end of the resolution, add the
following:
``Section 2. The following amendments shall be considered
as if they appeared after the amendment numbered 7 in House
Report 106-613.
8. An amendment to be offered by Representative Berkley of
Nevada, or a designee, debatable for 20 minutes.
protect the medicare program
Strike section 411 and insert the following new section:
SEC. 411. FIXED-YEAR AUTHORIZATIONS REQUIRED FOR NEW
PROGRAMS.
Section 401 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is
amended--
(1) by striking subsection (b) and inserting the following
new subsections:
``(b) Limitation of Direct Spending.--It shall not be in
order in the House of Representatives or in the Senate to
consider a bill or joint resolution, or an amendment, motion,
or conference report that provides direct spending for a new
program, unless such spending is limited to a period of 10 or
fewer fiscal years.
``(c) Limitation on Authorization of Discretionary
Appropriations.--It shall not be in order in the House of
Representatives or in the Senate to consider any bill, joint
resolution, amendment, or conference report that authorizes
the appropriation of new budget authority for a new program,
unless such authorization is specifically provided for a
period of 10 or fewer fiscal years.''; and
(2) by redesignating subsection (c) as subsection (d),
striking ``(a) and (b)'' both places it appears in such
redesignated subsection (d) and inserting ``(a), (b), and
(c)'', and inserting the following new paragraph in such
redesignated subsection (d):
``(3) Subsections (b) and (c) shall not apply to any new
prescription drug benefit.''.
Strike subsection (a) of section 421 and insert the
following new subsection:
(a) Timetable for Review.--Clause 2(d)(1) of rule X of the
Rules of the House of Representatives is amended by striking
subdivisions (B) and (C) and inserting the following new
subdivisions:
``(B) provide in its plans a specific timetable for its
review of those laws, programs, or agencies within its
jurisdiction, including those that operate under permanent
budget authority or permanent statutory authority and such
timetable shall demonstrate that each law, program, or agency
within the
[[Page H3092]]
committee's jurisdiction will be reauthorized at least once
every 10 years; and
``(C) exempt the medicare trust fund from the provisions of
subdivision (B).''.
9. An amendment to be offered by Representative Forbes of
New York, or a designee, debatable for 20 minutes.
protect veterans' benefits
Strike section 411 and insert the following new section:
SEC. 411 FIXED-YEAR AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED FOR NEW PROGRAMS.
Section 401 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is
amended--
(1) by striking subsection (b) and inserting the following
new subsections:
``(b) Limitation on Direct Spending.--It shall not be in
order in the House of Representatives or in the Senate to
consider a bill or joint resolution, or an amendment, motion,
or conference report that provides direct spending for a new
program, unless such spending is limited to a period of 10 or
fewer fiscal years.
``(c) Limitation on Authorization of Discretionary
Appropriations.--It shall not be in order in the House of
Representatives or in the Senate to consider any bill, joint
resolution, amendment, or conference report that authorizes
the appropriation of new budget authority for a new program,
unless such authorization is specifically provided for a
period of 10 or fewer fiscal years.''; and
(2) by redesignating subsection (c) as subsection (d),
striking ``(a) and (b)'' both places it appears in such
redesignated subsection (d) and inserting ``(a), (b), and
(c)'', and inserting the following new paragraph in such
redesignated subsection (d):
``(3) Subsections (b) and (c) shall not apply to any new
veterans benefit, program, and compensation.''.
Strike subsection (a) of section 421 and insert the
following new subsection:
(a) Timetable for Review.--Clause 2(d)(1) of rule X of the
Rules of the House of Representatives is amended by striking
subdivisions (B) and (C) and inserting the following new
subdivisions:
``(B) provide in its plans a specific timetable for its
review of those laws, programs, or agencies within its
jurisdiction, including those that operate under permanent
budget authority or permanent statutory authority and such
timetable shall demonstrate that each law, program, or agency
within the committee's jurisdiction will be reauthorized at
least once every 10 years; and
``(C) exempt veterans benefits from the provisions of
subdivision (B) program, and compensation.''.
10. An amendment to be offered by Representative Holt of
New Jersey, or a designee, debatable for 20 minutes.
protect student loan programs
Strike section 411 and insert the following new section:
SEC. 411. FIXED-YEAR AUTHORIZATIONS REQUIRED FOR NEW
PROGRAMS.
Section 401 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is
amended--
(1) by striking subsection (b) and inserting the following
new subsections:
``(b) Limitation on Direct Spending.--It shall not be in
order in the House of Representatives or in the Senate to
consider a bill or joint resolution, or an amendment, motion,
or conference report that provides direct spending for a new
program, unless such spending is limited to a period of 10 or
fewer fiscal years.
``(c) Limitation on Authorization of Discretionary
Appropriations.--It shall not be in order in the House of
Representatives or in the Senate to consider any bill, joint
resolution, amendment, or conference report that authorizes
the appropriation of new budget authority for a new program,
unless such authorization is specifically provided for a
period of 10 or fewer fiscal years.''; and
(2) by redesignating subsection (c) as subsection (d),
striking ``(a) and (b)'' both places it appears in such
redesignated subsection (d) and inserting ``(a), (b), and
(c)'', and inserting the following new paragraph in such
redesignated subsection (d):
``(3) Subsections (b) and (c) shall not apply to any new
student loan program.''.
Strike subsection (a) of section 421 and insert the
following new subsection:
(a) Timetable for Review.--Clause 2(d)(1) of rule X of the
Rules of the House of Representatives is amended by striking
subdivisions (B) and (C) and inserting the following new
subdivisions:
``(B) provide in its plans a specific timetable for its
review of those laws, programs, or agencies within its
jurisdiction, including those that operate under permanent
budget authority or permanent statutory authority and such
timetable shall demonstrate that each law, program, or agency
within the committee's jurisdiction will be reauthorized at
least once every 10 years; and
``(C) exempt student loan programs from the provisions of
subdivision (B).''.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I move the previous question on the
resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barrett of Nebraska). The question is on
ordering the previous question.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair will reduce to a minimum
of 5 minutes the period of time within which a vote by electronic
device, if ordered, will be taken on the question of agreeing to the
resolution.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 221,
nays 200, not voting 13, as follows:
[Roll No. 185]
YEAS--221
Aderholt
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baker
Ballenger
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bateman
Bereuter
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bliley
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Brady (TX)
Bryant
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Canady
Cannon
Cardin
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth-Hage
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Cook
Cooksey
Cox
Crane
Cubin
Cunningham
Davis (VA)
Deal
DeLay
DeMint
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Doolittle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
English
Everett
Ewing
Fletcher
Foley
Fossella
Fowler
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Goode
Goodlatte
Goodling
Goss
Graham
Granger
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutknecht
Hall (OH)
Hansen
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hill (MT)
Hilleary
Hobson
Hoekstra
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hulshof
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Isakson
Istook
Jenkins
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Kasich
Kelly
King (NY)
Kingston
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kuykendall
LaHood
Latham
LaTourette
Lazio
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lucas (OK)
Manzullo
Martinez
McCrery
McHugh
McInnis
McKeon
Metcalf
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Moore
Moran (KS)
Morella
Myrick
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Ose
Oxley
Packard
Paul
Pease
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Pombo
Porter
Portman
Pryce (OH)
Quinn
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Reynolds
Riley
Rogan
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roukema
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Salmon
Sanford
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaffer
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Skeen
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Spence
Stearns
Stump
Sununu
Sweeney
Talent
Tancredo
Tauzin
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thornberry
Thune
Tiahrt
Toomey
Traficant
Upton
Vitter
Walden
Walsh
Wamp
Watkins
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NAYS--200
Abercrombie
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldacci
Baldwin
Barcia
Barrett (WI)
Becerra
Bentsen
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop
Blagojevich
Blumenauer
Bonior
Borski
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Capps
Capuano
Carson
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Condit
Conyers
Costello
Coyne
Cramer
Crowley
Cummings
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Doyle
Edwards
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Forbes
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frost
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green (TX)
Gutierrez
Hall (TX)
Hastings (FL)
Hill (IN)
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hoeffel
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
John
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
Kleczka
Klink
Kucinich
LaFalce
Lampson
Lantos
Larson
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McKinney
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Miller, George
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Moran (VA)
Murtha
Napolitano
Neal
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Phelps
Pickett
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Rivers
[[Page H3093]]
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanchez
Sanders
Sandlin
Sawyer
Schakowsky
Scott
Serrano
Sherman
Shows
Sisisky
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Spratt
Stabenow
Stark
Stenholm
Strickland
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thurman
Tierney
Towns
Turner
Udall (CO)
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Waters
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Weiner
Wexler
Weygand
Wise
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
NOT VOTING--13
Ackerman
Campbell
Danner
Franks (NJ)
Largent
LoBiondo
McCollum
McIntosh
McNulty
Millender-McDonald
Nadler
Stupak
Udall (NM)
{time} 1421
Mr. SHOWS changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Messrs. METCALF, MOORE, and HOUGHTON changed their vote from ``nay''
to ``yea.''
So the previous question was ordered.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Stated against:
Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 185, I was
detained by constituents and was unable to get to the floor in time.
Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''
____________________