February 19, 1974
Page 3359
BUDGET REFORM
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, within a very few weeks the Senate will have before it legislation to reform the procedures by which the Congress handles the Federal budget.
The budget reform bill will be one of the most important measures the Senate will consider this year. It is important not only because our own procedures for considering the budget badly need reform, but also because it provides an opportunity for the Congress to reassert its constitutional power to control the Federal purse strings. It is an opportunity that we must not allow to slip away.
When budget reform legislation is considered by the Senate, it will reflect the work of three committees of the Congress. 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 labored for more than 8 months before approving budget reform legislation. Now, the Committee on Rules and Administration is working to further refine the bill.
Mr. President, this legislation will command bipartisan support. The bill reported by the Committee on Government Operations reflects the work of Senators of both parties. Under the leadership of the distinguished Senator from North Carolina (Mr. ERVIN), Senators METCALF, PERCY, BROCK, myself, and others, worked together to develop what I believe is a comprehensive and workable legislation.
That bipartisan spirit has continued in the Rules Committee during its consideration of the bill.
At the direction of the distinguished Senator from Nevada (Mr. CANNON), and the distinguished assistant majority leader (Mr. BYRD), the staff of the Rules Committee is meeting with staff members from the Committee on Government operations and nearly every major committee of the Senate in an effort to improve this bill. I am confident that this extraordinary effort will result in an even better bill being reported to the Senate by the Committee on Rules and Administration before the end of this month.
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.
During the 1st session of the 93d Congress, the Senate took important steps toward redressing the balance of powers between the Congress and the President. It passed landmark legislation to block Presidential impoundment of funds and to assure Congress information it needs in the face of Presidential claims of executive 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 crippled in its efforts to carry out its dual responsibility to establish national priorities and control Federal expenditures. It lacks both the necessary resources to give the budget proper consideration and an adequate procedure for making rational decisions on national priorities.
There is little dispute that the present congressional system of considering the budget is in need of reform.
First, under the present appropriations process, Congress lacks both the staff and the information it needs to consider the budget comprehensively. Congress, to be sure, is at a disadvantage compared to the President in making budgetary decisions. It does not have its own budget staff, and it must rely on the executive branch for much of the information, the judgments and the evaluations it needs to make fiscal decisions.
Just this month, the President sent the Congress a 346 page Budget, accompanied by an appendix of more than 1,000 pages. Over the next few months, these documents will be supplemented by thousands of pages of justifications and explanations. This budget proposes a substantial redirection of the fiscal policies this same President recommended in his budget a year ago.
Congress, unfortunately, lacks the information and the staff it needs to thoroughly evaluate the President's fiscal recommendations.
To act as a resourceful and responsible budgetmaker, Congress needs its own staff and its sources of information. That is why it is imperative that budget reform legislation must increase the amount of information Congress, as a whole, has in making budgetary decisions. We must provide ourselves with the staff resources we need, not only to allow more careful consideration of the President's budget but also to allow us to develop alternative budget proposals of our own.
The bill reported by the Government Operations Committee does take important steps to increase budgetary information available to Congress and to bolster the congressional staff for handling the budget. I am hopeful that the thrust of both of these reforms will be retained by the Rules Committee.
Second, under the present appropriations process, the Congress does not have the time it needs to consider the budget adequately. This time problem is twofold: Congress gets a late start on its budget consideration, and it cannot complete action on the budget in time to avoid forcing the executive branch to run on continuing resolutions for many months.
Budget reform legislation, too, must provide Congress with more time to consider budget and priority decisions. The Government Operations Committee bill changed the start of the fiscal year to October 1 in an effort to create a realistic timetable for budget consideration that is consistent with the operations of the Congress. Whatever timetable, the Congress finally adopts, we must avoid putting ourselves, year after year, in the embarrassing position of not being able to complete our work on the budget before the beginning of the next fiscal year.
Third, under the current appropriations process, major spending decisions are fragmented. In fiscal 1974, for example, only 44 percent of the budget went through the Appropriations Committees. This fragmented process of considering spending measures makes it virtually impossible for the Congress to make rational decisions on spending priorities.
As Drs. Alice M. Rivlin and Charles L. Schultze of the Brookings Institution recently wrote–
Current Congressional budget procedures are not adequate for dealing with any questions of priorities. When the President's budget proposal reaches Congress today, it is pulled apart and considered in fragments. Hearings are held by authorizing committees dealing with particular programs or agencies, and separate bills are reported to the Floor and voted on in each House. More hearings are held in Appropriations Subcommittees, and appropriations bills for particular agencies are reported and voted on at different times during the year. Revenue measures to finance these outlays are handled separately by different committees....
At no point does Congress put these separate actions and non-actions together to see whether they make sense as a whole.
Mr. President, it is imperative that congressional budget reform legislation contain a flexible workable procedure that will allow Congress to make rational priorities decisions. The bill reported by the Government Operations Committee contains such a procedure. That procedure is now being examined closely by the Committee on Rules, and I have little doubt that the Rules Committee will improve it to better insure its workability.
Mr. President, the challenge before the Congress is to develop a procedure to reform these readily acknowledged problems in the process by which the Congress now considers the budget. I am encouraged by the extraordinary effort we are making to meet that challenge.
I am aware that reforming congressional budget procedures will not be easy to accomplish. It will require us to make changes in the way we operate. It may be necessary to phase in some of these changes gradually. But I am confident that we do have the resolve in this body to reform our procedures and that we will enact workable budget reform legislation this year.