house Bill H.R. 4066
Should Presidential Budget Submissions Not Automatically Increase Agency Budgets to Adjust for Inflation?
Argument in favor
By requiring separate lines for each agency’s budgetary increases, this bill would increase accountability for federal spending to fund each agency.
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11/01/2019
This should not be automatic. There should be transparency in government, even when this makes more work. Politicians work for the American people.
11/01/2019
Presidential budget submissions should not automatically increase for inflation, especially when our Federal deficit has increased 26% to $984 billion for fiscal 2019, the highest in 7 years.
11/01/2019
A thousand times yes! Nothing other than this should have ever been happening in the first place. No automatic increases! Instead, cut those budgets bigly!
Argument opposed
Not automatically adjusting agencies’ budgets to account for inflation would effectively decrease budgets from year to year. This would hurt agencies’ abilities to carry out their important work.
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11/01/2019
The federal agencies work with funding that is capped by category and cannot be shifted from one ‘pot’ to another. Funds to pay salaries and benefits cannot be moved to funding to support programs; funds to support construction, maintenance and rehabilitation of facilities are likewise capped; as are funds to support agency programs. There is no flexibility. The problem with this proposal is that it is a one-size-fits-all solution which does not consider what the agencies do, how they are staffed nor what programs they support. I believe that there are numerous agencies that are over staffed and wasteful. I know there are other agencies that are staffed with grossly underpaid federal experts who would effectively be pushed out of career dedicated service by this approach. I had worked with a large group of NASA engineering scientists, many of whom were internationally recognized experts in their field, who have authored numerous text books which are used in graduate engineering courses and are only working as federal employees simply because they are dedicated to resolving long term NASA technical challenges. Several left to assume college professorships and doubled their salary; a couple left for industrial positions and nearly tripled their income. There are many governmental agencies and jobs filled by career professional experts such as these, all of whom work off of a common pay scale. Pushing these people out of the service that they love by some arbitrary one-size-fits-all rule which cuts resource allocations to fund them is wrong. Get some balls and tackle wasteful funding where it truly occurs and protect critical positions and programs where it does not. The ‘easy’ way is not the right way to do this.
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11/01/2019
Do not single our "Presidential budget" All Federal spending must be authorized annually. No automatic spending on anything. We are in debt. Congress continues to exploit deficit spending. Balance Our Budget.
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11/01/2019
Federal agencies need to be able to plan for the future and manage their resources. I'm already very concerned at the gutting of some agencies while the military has record funding with no accountability for how they spend it. At least if we could be sure that budgets would adjust for inflation, that's a few less dollars likely to be stolen from these agencies by a president who doesn't value them, no matter the agency or the president.
This should not be automatic. There should be transparency in government, even when this makes more work. Politicians work for the American people.
The federal agencies work with funding that is capped by category and cannot be shifted from one ‘pot’ to another. Funds to pay salaries and benefits cannot be moved to funding to support programs; funds to support construction, maintenance and rehabilitation of facilities are likewise capped; as are funds to support agency programs. There is no flexibility. The problem with this proposal is that it is a one-size-fits-all solution which does not consider what the agencies do, how they are staffed nor what programs they support. I believe that there are numerous agencies that are over staffed and wasteful. I know there are other agencies that are staffed with grossly underpaid federal experts who would effectively be pushed out of career dedicated service by this approach. I had worked with a large group of NASA engineering scientists, many of whom were internationally recognized experts in their field, who have authored numerous text books which are used in graduate engineering courses and are only working as federal employees simply because they are dedicated to resolving long term NASA technical challenges. Several left to assume college professorships and doubled their salary; a couple left for industrial positions and nearly tripled their income. There are many governmental agencies and jobs filled by career professional experts such as these, all of whom work off of a common pay scale. Pushing these people out of the service that they love by some arbitrary one-size-fits-all rule which cuts resource allocations to fund them is wrong. Get some balls and tackle wasteful funding where it truly occurs and protect critical positions and programs where it does not. The ‘easy’ way is not the right way to do this.
Do not single our "Presidential budget" All Federal spending must be authorized annually. No automatic spending on anything. We are in debt. Congress continues to exploit deficit spending. Balance Our Budget.
Presidential budget submissions should not automatically increase for inflation, especially when our Federal deficit has increased 26% to $984 billion for fiscal 2019, the highest in 7 years.
Federal agencies need to be able to plan for the future and manage their resources. I'm already very concerned at the gutting of some agencies while the military has record funding with no accountability for how they spend it. At least if we could be sure that budgets would adjust for inflation, that's a few less dollars likely to be stolen from these agencies by a president who doesn't value them, no matter the agency or the president.
A thousand times yes! Nothing other than this should have ever been happening in the first place. No automatic increases! Instead, cut those budgets bigly!
The federal budget is a critical policy tool. To automate any part of it is an abrogation of congressional responsibility. Representatives and senators should do their damned jobs for a change!
First prepare a budget and remove the 1000 zombie programs that are costing 300 billion dollars a year. NO annual increase, each department needs to submit an annual budget (just like the private sector) and justify their needs. That way there would not be a rush at the end of each year to spend monies not spent.
Congress has not adjusted the minimum wage to match inflation for hard working people in this country for decades!
The budgets should automatically reduce by 2% and every head of department, organizations, and line supervisor type positions held accountable for their own budgets. If they can’t find ways to be more efficient and effective, then they need to be replaced. ANY and ALL government entities that overspend by greater than 5% should automatically be under an oversight probation period and if not corrected, department leadership fired. Continuous malfeasance in a department should mean the department be shopped for take over by private sector entities that almost ALWAYS outperform governments performing same functionality. Bloated and inefficient bureaucracy is the norm in government administrations and having zero financial accountability is the main reason.
No. Pretending there is no inflation is absurd. Our budget deficit has skyrocketed with the Republican’s tax bill, which benefited the richest the most. End corporate welfare!
The government and it’s spending needs to be constantly scrutinized. To the best of my knowledge the Pentagon has never been audited. Dwight Eisenhower, our 34th President, told us to beware of the military-industrial complex and our politicians have ignored this warning for decades while they take their dark money to the bank.
This bill makes sense. This would give Congress and the public a clearer picture of what the President’s proposed increases consist of. By breaking out how much of the increase is meant to cover inflation and how much is for salaries and wages, Congress can then understand what they are being asked to approve in a format like any other Executive branch is required to include in their budget line items. Congress should vote to approve this bill!
We need to cut spending somewhere and this could help cut the wasteful spending. It could also help lower out deficit.
Padding a budget has been a persistent problem. This is a reasonable bill to deal with that.
This would amount to across the board budget cuts that would happen automatically.
No a smart move.