In-Depth: Sponsoring Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) introduced this
bill to give lawmakers an opportunity to prevent waste and promote
efficiency through a greater emphasis on oversight in the budgeting process:
“With our national debt surpassing $18 trillion and growing, it is
imperative that we rethink the way that we do things in Congress. I have
pushed biennial budgeting every year I’ve been in the Senate since 2005
because this new system would increase oversight and reduce spending,
making our federal government more efficient and more accountable to
taxpayers.”
Biennial budgets have been criticized
for being slow to respond to changes in the government’s fiscal
condition. Former Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas
Holtz-Eakin testified in 2004 that:
“[C]hanging
to a two-year cycle could have significant drawbacks. It could
diminish the effectiveness of Congressional control of spending in the
appropriation process and could make adjusting to rapidly changing
budgetary and economic conditions more difficult.”
This bill currently has 25 bipartisan cosponsors in the Senate, after this legislation’s predecessor in the 113th Congress was endorsed by 68 members of the U.S. Senate.
Of Note: For more than 70 years biennial budgeting
has been a common practice at the state level, but the number of states
enacting two-year budgets has fallen from 44 in 1940 to 19 in 2011. Of
those states that use biennial budgets, 15 are state legislatures that
meet annually while the remaining four are only hold biennial sessions.
Media:
Summary by Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: Flickr user Lord Jim)
Economy
