March 20, 1974
Page 7479
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is the best kind of reform measure – self-reform. It will give Congress the means to deal in an orderly and comprehensive fashion with our most important decisions – those on budget policy and national priorities.
This legislation is necessary and important. It is necessary not only because our own procedures for handling the budget have gone unreformed for more than half a century, but also because it provides us an opportunity to reassert our constitutional control over the Federal purse strings.
Mr. President, it is important legislation because it can help restore our people's severely shaken faith in their Government.
Last fall, when my Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations surveyed public attitudes toward Government, we found that less than one American in three had "a great deal of confidence" in the Senate. More recently surveys by Louis Harris – who conducted the subcommittee survey – have found that public approval of the Congress has sunk even more.
I imagine that a great many Americans – perhaps a majority – perceive the Congress as an ineffective, uncreative institution unable to respond effectively to complex and pressing problems and unwilling to change its ways so that it can work better.
The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 challenges that perception. Enactment of this legislation will be a recognition that our procedures need reform and a demonstration that we are willing to change.
I am under no illusion that enacting budget reform legislation will alter radically the public perception of the Congress. But budget reform is a necessary step that we must take if we are to start down that long road toward restoring the balance of power between the branches of Government, and the balance of power between Government and citizen.
Last year, the Congress was the target of a partisan propaganda campaign, orchestrated in the White House, that branded us as "irresponsible" and "reckless" in our handling of the Federal budget.
Budget reform is our bipartisan and responsible response to partisan and reckless rhetoric.
To be sure, enactment of this legislation will not diminish debate in the Senate over what spending priorities should be. But this legislation represents a reaffirmation of the determination of members of both political parties to establish an open, informative and thorough way for Congress to handle the Federal budget.
This bill calls for comprehensive consideration of the budget requiring us to relate spending decisions to revenue decisions. It rejects the notion that unanticipated budget deficits result only from so-called "excessive spending." Rather, it recognizes that unexpected deficits can result from unrealistically high revenue estimates – as was the case for fiscal years 1970 through 1972 – or from unanticipated increases in uncontrollable expenditures, as well as from increased Federal spending. For that reason, it requires the Congress to make an inclusive review of its budget policies on at least two occasions during its budget consideration.
But most importantly, the procedure in this bill is a fair one. It establishes a procedure for congressional control of the budget that is neutral, that favors neither those who want to cut spending nor those who want to increase revenues.
Reforming the procedures by which Congress considers the budget is no easy undertaking.
Unlike the executive branch, the Congress is not a monolithic organization which speaks with one voice on budget policy. Rather, an acceptable and workable congressional budget procedure must insure that every committee and, indeed, every Member of Congress contributes to the decisions.
We have endeavored to develop such a procedure in the bill before us today. The procedures in this bill will provide Congress a badly needed overview of the Federal budget, without requiring unwarranted intrusions into the integrity of our committee system.
The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 was drafted with much care and consultation.
It reflects the work of three committees of the Congress over a period of more than a year. In the fall of 1972, the Congress created the Joint Study Committee on Budget Control to recommend ways the Congress could improve its control over the Federal budget.
The recommendations of the Joint Study Committee were examined at great length last year by the Committee on Government Operations, which worked for more than 8 months before approving budget reform legislation. The bill was then considered by the Committee on Rules and Administration which further refined it.
Mr. President, this legislation commanded bipartisan support at every step in its development.
The bill reported by the Committee on Government Operations reflected the work of Senators of both parties. Under the leadership of the distinguished Senator from North Carolina (Mr. ERVIN), Senators METCALF, PERCY, BROCK, NUNN, myself, and others worked together to develop comprehensive and workable legislation.
That cooperative spirit continued as the Rules Committee considered the bill. At the direction of the distinguished Senator from Nevada (Mr. CANNON), the distinguished assistant majority leader (Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD), and the distinguished assistant minority leader (Mr. GRIFFIN), the Rules Committee provided a forum for revising the bill, with the help of all interested parties.
The Rules Committee organized an extraordinary staff group for the purpose of reexamining the budget reform bill. All standing committees were invited to designate representatives. The resulting staff effort to produce a "consensus" bill is probably without precedent in the Senate. In all, 45 staff members representing 10 standing committees of the Senate, 4 joint committees, the House Appropriations Committee, the Congressional Research Service, and the Office of the Senate Legislative Counsel took part in this effort.
I am sure that the entire Senate joins me in expressing appreciation to the following staff members who played a key role in the development of this bill:
Robert Bland Smith, Jr., staff director and counsel of the Committee on Government Operations; and W. P. Goodwin, Jr., counsel to the committee.
William McWhorter Cochrane, staff director of the Committee on Rules and Administration;
Joseph E. O'Leary, minority counsel to the committee; Anthony L. Harvey, counsel to the Subcommittee on Computer Services of the Rules Committee.
Herbert N. Jasper, researcher to the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, who served as the chairman of the staff group which reexamined the bill.
J. Robert Vastine, minority counsel to the Committee on Government Operations; and John Pearson and Harrison Fox of the committee's minority staff.
Alvin From, staff director of my Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations; and James E. Hall, of the subcommittee staff.
E. Winslow Turner, chief counsel of Senator METCALF's Subcommittee on Budgeting, Management, and Expenditures.
Nicholas J. Bizony of Senator NUNN's staff.
And, we all owe a special thanks to Harry Littell, the legislative counsel, who has labored over drafts of this legislation for nearly a year.
II
Mr. President, we cannot overestimate the importance of budget reform legislation. It is critical to the reassertion by the Congress of its constitutional control over the Federal purse strings.
Last year, the Senate took important steps toward redressing the balance of powers between the Congress and the President. It passed landmark war powers legislation and measures to block Presidential impoundment of funds and to assure information to Congress in the face of Presidential claims of privilege. But despite these important measures, the procedures by which Congress exercises its fundamental power to appropriate funds and raise revenues have remained unreformed.
During the past half century, we have witnessed a steady erosion of congressional control over the budget. In contrast, we have seen a consistent escalation of executive influence over budget and fiscal policies.
As a result, in 1974, Congress finds itself severely weakened in its efforts to carry out its dual responsibility to determine Federal budget policies and to establish national priorities. It lacks both the necessary resources to give the budget proper consideration and an adequate procedure for making rational decisions on national priorities.
The bill before us will reform the most serious shortcomings in the system by which Congress currently considers the budget.
It will provide the Congress with additional resources it needs, both in terms of staff and information, to make independent decisions on budget policies.
It will establish a realistic timetable for congressional consideration of the budget, enabling Congress to complete its work on the budget before the beginning of each new fiscal year.
It will, for the first time, provide Congress with a mechanism for overall, comprehensive consideration of budget policies.
III
First, this bill will better equip the Congress to handle the Federal budget. It will create new organizations that are critical to the success of budget reform.
It will establish a 15-member Senate Budget Committee to oversee congressional budget matters. And it will create a Congressional Office of the Budget to provide both Houses of Congress with staff resources they need to investigate and analyze the budget.
The new Senate Budget Committee will provide this body, for the first time, with a single committee responsible for an overview of all policy matters affecting consideration of the budget.
That committee will become the focal point for all information and analyses relating to the formulation of recommended fiscal policies and budget priorities. But it will not be an executive committee of the Senate because existing committees – such as the Appropriations and Finance Committees and the authorizing committees – will have significant roles in the new budget process created in this bill.
The COB will meet our need for a highly competent professional staff to guide us in fiscal policy and budgetary considerations. It will be a full-time, year-round, nonpartisan staff that will compare with the General Accounting Office and will provide Congress with the kind of information and analyses it needs to work on equal footing with the executive branch.
In my view, the creation of the COB is an essential element of this bill. It is particularly important that the Congressional Office of the Budget will serve all committees and Members of Congress. If committees and members are to operate effectively within this new budget context, they must have the right to easy access to the COB for whatever information and specialized assistance they need.
The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 also contains a number of provisions to expand the budgetary information available to Congress. The bill, for example, requires that Congress be given information concerning both tax expenditures in the budget and timely projections of the estimated impact of current decisions on future budgets. It requires, in addition, that early in the budget consideration process, the President submit a current services budget estimating the cost of continuing programs at their existing levels. With the current services budget in hand, the Congress can more easily evaluate proposed policy changes when the President submits his fiscal budget.
IV
Second, the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 will provide Congress with the additional time it needs to complete action on the budget.
In changing the start of the fiscal year to October 1, the bill contemplates congressional consideration of the budget. It requires the President to submit the current services budget by November 10 and his final budget by February 15.
As a result, this bill will provide Congress with more time than it now has to consider budget policies after submission of the President's budget as well as with the capability to generate its own information for year-round budget considerations.
V
Third, this legislation will equip Congress with a means for overall evaluation of budget policies.
The cornerstones of this mechanism are the two budget resolutions. The first, enacted by June 1 would, in effect, establish the congressional budget for the fiscal year beginning the next October 1. That resolution would establish appropriate overall spending levels and recommended sub-targets by functional categories, as well as revenue estimates and both projected and desirable surpluses or debts.
The second budget resolution must be enacted shortly after Labor Day. This resolution provides Congress with the opportunity to reassess its initial budget and priority decisions just before the beginning of the new fiscal year taking into account the most current economic data and the intervening actions on individual spending measures. If the latest revenue estimates and the individual spending measures previously enacted differ from the appropriate levels established in that second budget resolution, the resolution will also direct committees of jurisdiction to recommend the legislative action necessary to reconcile those differences.
Congress will then complete its action on the budget by enacting the reconciliation bill mandated by the second concurrent resolution.
An important element of the process in this bill is that it requires the input of the Appropriations Committee, the Joint Economic Committee, the Finance Committee, the legislative committees, and the Congressional Office of the Budget before action upon that first budget resolution. In fact, the bill requires that authorization bills be reported to the Senate before May 15 so Congress will have the benefit of the work of the authorization committees before it when it enacts its first budget resolution.
As a result, when the House and Senate consider that first budget resolution, they will already have been informed of the views of all the key participants in the budget process, as well as the prospective impact of the budget.
After the Congress approves the first budget resolution, it will begin work on the actual appropriations or spending bills. The bill calls for all spending bills to be completed by early August so that Congress will have time to reassess and revise its spending and revenue decisions in the second budget resolution and the reconciliation bill.
VI
In this legislation, we are attempting to establish a fair and workable system for congressional control of the budget.
To be sure, with the enactment of this legislation, many of the procedures by which we operate in this body will be modified. But in drafting this legislation, we have made an extraordinary effort to consider the views of those Senators who expressed specific concerns about the bill.
Mr. President, I wish to underscore the fact that this new congressional budget process will not interfere with the manner in which Congress acts on appropriations measures. Rather, the procedure in this bill will supplement the appropriations process only to the extent of providing Congress with the capability of determining overall fiscal policy, focusing more closely on so-called uncontrollable programs, relating expenditures to revenues and debt, and establishing broad national priorities.
And this new congressional budget process does not attempt to diminish the responsibilities of the legislative committees. The bill in no way interferes with their prerogatives to authorize programs, and it insures their participation in the drafting of legislation to reconcile individual congressional actions with overall congressional budget policies before the beginning of each fiscal year.
VII
Mr. President, in the past 12 months we have come a long way toward meaningful and workable budget reform. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 will, upon its enactment, not provide an instant panacea for all the ills that now afflict the process by which Congress considers the budget.
But the process for considering the budget included in this bill can work with the cooperation of the entire Senate. As we have developed this bill, we have sought and received that kind of bipartisan cooperation.
There is no question in my mind that this is most necessary legislation. And I am convinced that its enactment and implementation is essential for Congress to reassert its constitutional responsibility to control the Federal purse strings.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a further, detailed explanation of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 be included in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
EXPLANATION OF S. 1541, THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET ACT OF 1974
ESTABLISHMENT OF COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
The Bill creates a fifteen-member Senate Budget Committee. The membership of that Committee would be selected by the party caucuses. The Committee would be a major standing Committee so that after January 1979 its members could serve on the Budget Committee and just one other major committee. Until that time, its members could serve on the Budget Committee and two other major committees.
The Budget Committee would be the focal point for all information and analyses relating to the formulation of recommended fiscal policies and budget priorities. Its principal responsibility would be to consider the input of the Appropriations Committee, the Joint Economic Committee, the Finance Committee, the legislative committees, and the Congressional Office of the Budget and then report to the Senate for consideration a concurrent resolution setting out appropriate overall spending levels and recommended sub targets by functional categories, revenue estimates and projected and appropriate surpluses and debts.
In addition, the Budget Committee would be required to report to the Senate a second concurrent resolution not later than three days before the beginning of the August recess or not later than August 15 when Congress does not take an August recess. That second concurrent resolution would direct the steps Congress must take in a reconciliation bill to reconcile its individual budget actions with the budget policies established in that second concurrent resolution. In those cases in which the second concurrent resolution directs actions by more than one committee, the Budget Committee would be responsible for reporting out the reconciliation bill.
CONGRESSIONAL OFFICE OF THE BUDGET
The Bill establishes a Congressional Office of the Budget with a Director and Deputy Director appointed by the Speaker and the President Pro Tem after consultation with the Budget Committees, approved by both Houses, subject to removal by either House, for a term of office of six years.
The Congressional Office of the Budget would be a non-partisan staff to assist the Budget Committees in the discharge of all matters within their jurisdiction, and to provide informational and analytical services on the budget generally to other committees and members of Congress.
The Budget Committees in both Houses would have their own staffs.
CHANGE IN FISCAL YEAR
The fiscal year would be changed to October 1. The purpose of this change is to eliminate one of the most serious budgetary problems Congress now faces – that of having to run the country on continuing resolutions from July until the appropriations process is completed. The fiscal year shift will allow Congress the time it needs to complete its work on the budget before the new fiscal year begins.
TIMETABLE
The timetable for the Congressional budget process would be as follows:
[Table Omitted]
FIRST CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET
The first concurrent resolution on the budget will set out the appropriate levels of total new spending for the upcoming fiscal year and recommend the allocation of that spending by functional categories. In addition, the first budget resolution will set forth estimated revenues, a recommended level of surplus or deficit, recommended changes in levels of revenues or the level of public debt in order to achieve the recommended surplus or deficit. This first concurrent resolution would, in fact, represent a "Congressional Budget."
The budget resolution would set out the sub-targets by functional area as follows:
Health (budget authority and estimated outlays) Existing programs:
Permanent authority ................................................._____
Appropriations committee jurisdiction........._____
Relatively controllable.................................._____
Relatively uncontrollable.............................._____
Proposed programs .................................................._____
Subtotal (health) .........................................._____
After the Budget Resolution is enacted, the Bill requires the Committee on the Budget to submit a report translating the spending levels in the functional categories into estimated appropriate spending levels for each individual appropriations bill and backdoor spending measure. The specific breakdowns for appropriations bills would be supplied by the Appropriations Committee.
RULES FOR CONSIDERATION OF FIRST CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Debate on the first concurrent resolution will be limited to fifty hours overall and two hours on each amendment.
All amendments to the concurrent resolution, whether or not they are mathematically consistent, are in order. The only consistency requirement, under. the Bill, is that the concurrent resolution be mathematically consistent at the time of final passage. The Bill allows the resolution to be made consistent on the floor if it is inconsistent after all amendments are considered.
In the event that House and Senate conferees cannot reconcile their differences on the first concurrent resolution, the Bill sets up the following procedure: The concurrent resolution includes those totals on which the conferees have agreed and the arithmetic mean between the two versions for those totals on which the conferees could not agree.
AUTHORIZATION PROCESS
Under the Bill, all authorization legislation for the next fiscal year must be reported before May 15.
The Bill would also allow the Senate, upon the recommendation (within ten days) of the Budget Committee to waive the authorization reporting deadlines.
SCOREKEEPING PROCEDURES
The Bill includes intensive scorekeeping provisions. The purpose of the scorekeeping provisions is to keep the Congress informed during its consideration of spending measures of how its actions correspond to the appropriate spending levels set forth in the first concurrent resolution.
Specifically, the Bill requires that all spending measures must be accompanied by a statement, prepared after consultation with the Director of the COB, detailing how that bill would compare with the figures in the concurrent resolution. Reports accompanying tax expenditure legislation shall include a comparison of the new tax expenditures level with the existing level and a justification for the change.
In addition, the COB will be responsible for keeping up-to-date tabulations and status reports on spending measures as they are considered by the Congress.
After reconciliation, the COB will be required to prepare a report detailing a five-year projection of the impact of Congressional action.
APPROPRIATION PROCESS AND RECONCILIATION
The Bill sets aside a two-month period after the enactment of the first concurrent resolution for the Congress to act upon appropriations bills and other spending measures. Specifically, it requires that all action on spending measures and tax expenditure measures be completed by August 7. However, no spending measure passed between June 7 and August 7 can go into effect until the beginning of the next fiscal year, October 1.
The Bill provides that no spending measures be acted upon before June 1, the date of enactment of the first concurrent resolution. The only exceptions to that rule involve entitlements and trust funds, programs like veterans' benefits and social security benefits. Entitlements can be enacted before the first concurrent resolution is completed on the condition that each bill providing for entitlements is re-referred to the Appropriations Committee for a ten-day period before it is acted upon by the Congress. Entitlements acted upon before the completion of the first concurrent resolution, like those acted upon after the resolution, would not go into effect until the following October 1.
After action is completed on all individual spending measures, the bill sets forth a process to reassess the actions taken on those individual measures and the appropriate spending levels, revenue estimates and appropriate surplus or debt set out in the first budget resolution. This reconciliation process would work like this.
By a date three days prior to the beginning of the August recess, or by August 15 in years in which there is no August recess, the Budget Committee must report to the Senate a second concurrent resolution. That resolution must be adopted by a date three days after the end of the August recess or four days after Labor Day.
The second concurrent resolution will reaffirm or revise any or all figures in the initial concurrent resolution and may specify the amounts, if any, by which spending, revenues, and the public debt limit are to be changed in order to achieve the appropriate surplus or deficit, as the case may be.
This resolution will, where changes are specified, direct the Committees of jurisdiction to determine and recommend necessary legislative action to accomplish the changes. That second concurrent resolution may direct rescissions of new budget authority on a pro rata basis in cases where it is determined that selected rescissions are not feasible.
After the concurrent resolution is enacted, Congress must then work on a reconciliation bill. If the changes directed by the second concurrent resolution affect only one committee of the Senate, that committee would then promptly report a reconciliation bill to the Senate recommending specific changes in law to meet the directions set out in the second concurrent resolution.
If, however, more than one committee is affected by the directions set out in the second concurrent resolution, each committee affected shall promptly recommend changes in laws, in accordance with the direction in the second concurrent resolution, and transmit those recommendations to the Budget Committee. The Budget Committee will then report a reconciliation bill to the floor.
Congress must complete action on the reconciliation bill by September 25. And the Bill prevents the Congress from adjourning until the reconciliation process is completed.
BACKDOOR SPENDING
All backdoor spending measures providing for contract or borrowing authority must go through the regular appropriations process.
However, the Bill does allow some exceptions in the handling of backdoor spending. Any bill providing for payments under a mandatory entitlement formula, for example, will be referred to the Appropriations Committee for not to exceed ten days after which the Appropriations Committee must report it to the floor.
In addition, the Bill exempts new trust funds from the provisions covering backdoor spending. The Bill also provides an exemption for general revenue sharing, providing the new authorization legislation for revenue sharing exempts it from the backdoor spending controls.
EXECUTIVE SUBMISSION OF THE BUDGET
The Rules Committee Bill requires the President to submit to Congress a Current Services Budget by November 10. The Current Services Budget will be broken down by functional and sub-functional categories, showing estimated expenditures and proposed appropriations if all existing programs and activities were to be carried on for the ensuing fiscal year at existing levels with no policy changes.
The Bill sets the date for submission of the President's budget at February 15.
IMPOUNDMENTS
The Bill includes an anti-impoundment title that amends the Anti-Deficiency Act to limit the justifications for reserving funds.
The Anti-Deficiency Act permits the Executive to create reserves of appropriations to provide for contingencies, to effect savings when such savings are made possible through changed requirements, and through greater efficiency of operations, or other developments subsequent to the date on which such appropriation was made available. The Anti-Deficiency Act has been used as a justification for impoundments of funds for fiscal and other program purposes, even though the legislative history of the Anti-Deficiency Act makes clear that it was not to be used for such purposes.
The anti-impoundment title would provide that appropriated funds may not be reserved for fiscal policy reasons or to achieve less than the full objectives and scope of programs enacted and funded by Congress. It would require that the Comptroller General be notified in advance whenever reserves are to be made, and it would empower him to sue in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to enforce the terms of the Title, in other words, to contest any impoundments made for reasons other than those specifically provided in the Anti-Deficiency Act.
TRANSITION PERIOD
There would be a phased implementation of the procedures under the Bill. The Budget Committee and the COB would be established upon enactment (presumably in 1974). The Budget Committees could report a first concurrent resolution as a "dry run" for fiscal year 1976.
In calendar year 1976, the new Congressional budget process would take full effect for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 1977.