Bi-, Bi-, Biennial Budgeting! | Citizens Against Government Waste

Bi-, Bi-, Biennial Budgeting!

The WasteWatcher

While not as entertaining as “Bye, Bye, Birdie,” the bobby-soxer romp of the early 1960s, biennial budgeting represents a refreshing change-of-pace from the dour melodrama that Congress’ current fiscal discourse has become.  On March 22, 2013, Sens. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) scored a preliminary victory on the issue when the Senate voted 68-31 in favor of their amendment (S. Amdt. 138) to the Senate’s first-in-four-years budget resolution.  The Isakson-Shaheen effort provides a matinee preview to their legislation, S. 554, the Biennial Budgeting and Appropriations Act, that would be needed to implement the recommendations included in the upper chamber’s budget resolution, which does not carry the force of law.

Specifically, the proposed reform would force Congress to become better stewards of the taxpayers’ money by placing Congress on a two-year budget cycle, with one year devoted to appropriating federal dollars and the other year devoted to oversight of federal programs.  Support for the amendment included such political opposites as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–Nev.) and Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R–Ala.), portending that S. 554 would have a good chance of passing the Senate.

In a press release following passage of the amendment, Sens. Isakson and Shaheen commented on the need for the fresh approach to budgeting and appropriations.  “We budget every year, we spend money every year, but we never do oversight or look for cost-benefit savings,” said Sen. Isakson.  “The biennial budgeting process, which has been adopted by 20 of the 50 states in this country, is a process that will force lawmakers in Washington to do our jobs and budget, appropriate, and conduct oversight to make sure that we are good stewards of tax dollars.”

“Biennial budgeting gives us a better, more responsible way to address our debt and deficits by making our budget process smarter and more efficient,” Sen. Shaheen observed.  “I’m glad the Senate supported this commonsense plan that would remove uncertainty that currently blunts economic growth but would also allow Congress to exercise better oversight and rein in excess spending.”

Biennial budgeting has been endorsed by each successive administration since it was first proposed by President Ronald Reagan, as well as by numerous federal budget experts.  Sen. Isakson has sponsored biennial budgeting proposals every year since he was first elected to the Senate in 2004, while Sen. Shaheen understands the efficacy of biennial budgeting from her tenure as governor of New Hampshire.  Under this system, the second session of each Congress would be reserved for oversight, which is necessary to mitigate mismanagement and inefficiency, as well as to ensure that federal programs meet their goals.  Currently, lawmakers have inadequate time for oversight.

As Sen. Isakson pointed out in a conversation with CAGW staff, “oversight is hard work.”  It is not as enticing to voters as “bringing home the bacon,” another reason why limiting the budget and appropriations process to odd-numbered years would further restrict the politically motivated redistribution of taxpayers’ dollars just ahead of the even-numbered years’ elections.  Creating more distance in time between the doling out of dollars in Washington, D.C. and the casting of votes in congressional elections represents positive reform, both institutionally and psychologically.  Congress needs to pause periodically to review the myriad programs that it promulgates, rather than rubber-stamping retread budgets each year.  A federal government on “cruise control,” as the senator said, is all the more prone to waste and inefficiency, which provides all the more reason for regular oversight sessions.

Sen. Isakson had volunteered to be the standard-bearer for this procedural innovation when its previous champion, former Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R–N.M.), retired from Congress in 2009.  Moreover, Sen. Isakson purposefully sought out the most logical allies to promote this issue:  governors (regardless of party) who had real-world experience with this form of budgeting as the chief executives of their respective states; hence, his partnership with Sen. Shaheen.

Even before the Isakson-Shaheen amendment was approved, opposition to biennial budgeting had been softening.  Before he retired at the end of the last Congress, then-Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D–N.D.) had said that his “attitude [toward biennial budgeting] is changing very dramatically” because of his colleagues’ recent budget failures.  When Sen. Conrad offered this assessment in 2010, Congress had failed, for the first time since the current budget rules were enacted in 1974, to bring a budget to the floor.

Since then, matters have only worsened, culminating with the ignominious sequestration that took effect on March 1, 2013.  Sequestration itself was originally intended to coerce unruly lawmakers to agree to budget alternatives ahead of a “red line” so draconian that no reasonable-minded legislator (and certainly not a majority of them) would dare cross it.  So much for reasonable minds.

Perhaps it is in this frustrating context that Sen. Isakson’s vision, aided by Sen. Shaheen and other senators, will finally come to fruition.  Requiring spending decisions to be made in the first year of each Congress might mitigate the budgetary brinksmanship that has poisoned relations on Capitol Hill, while instilling the much-needed discipline of program oversight every other year.  As many states have already demonstrated, biennial budgeting can be done successfully.