Rescission is an abstruse presidential tool passed amid the Nixon administration under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Using rescission, a president can select any appropriated federal program for reduction or elimination by telling Congress what he or she intends to cut. The Congress then has 45 days to accept the decision […]
Taxes, Budget, Appropriations
In 2018, Republicans have done little to separate themselves from Democrats when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars. On February 9, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 eviscerated the last semblance of fiscal responsibility in Washington, the 2011 Budget Control Act, by allowing spending caps to increase by $300 billion over the next two years. […]
The Earmark Elimination Act—H.R. 5369—would prohibit the House from considering any legislation containing earmarks, and it would strip any earmarks found in a bill being considered by the House before it could proceed.
The concept that federal information technology (IT) procurement should be technology and vendor neutral is among the best practices for federal government agencies. However, when a large federal agency issues an exceptionally large cloud contract to a predetermined vendor for a specific technology solution without competitive bidding, such a contract is neither technology nor vendor […]
Reality: Earmarks are not the answer to mitigating the extreme partisanship that exists in Washington and are have nothing to do with getting things done.
As we finish our Halloween candy and start preparing for Thanksgiving, each of the fifty states has now passed its required budget. As forty-nine of the fifty states require a balanced budget, which means the politicians can’t always resort to gimmicks and kick the can down the road like they do in Washington, D.C., the […]
Faced with a budget deficit of $3.5 billion over the next two years, and three months overdue on a budget for fiscal years 2018 and 2019, Connecticut lawmakers face a difficult situation and must make tough choices. In 2011 and 2015, the legislature tried to solve the state’s fiscal woes by passing big tax increases. […]
In political patois, “kicking the can down the road” connotes procrastination. As long as the proverbial can is kicked “down the road,” rather than picked up, then the proper disposition of the derelict container is put off until some future point in time. And much like the (equally proverbial) kicker’s aversion to taking definitive action on a relatively straightforward task, the U.S. Congress is composed of 535 “can kickers,” given their predilection to avoid taking action until the last possible minute. On Tuesday, September 5, 2017, when the current Congress reconvenes after its annual August recess, it will have less than a month to complete several “must pass” items.
On March 7, 2017, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced that if the debt ceiling was not raised or extended before March 16, the U.S. Treasury would be unable to borrow funds for standard operating procedures. Since then, the Treasury has been forced to use accounting maneuvers known as “extraordinary measures” to keep the government running, but these work-arounds will only delay the inevitable debate that Congress must have. Eventually, Congress will have to decide how to address the debt ceiling, or the federal government will default on its payments and risk an economic crisis.
