Bills
| 3.23.22

No Budget, No Pay: Holding Congressional Paychecks When They Can't Agree on a Budget (S. 39)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is S. 39?

(Updated May 25, 2021)

This bill — the No Budget, No Pay Act — would withhold the paychecks of members of Congress from whichever chamber (the House or the Senate, or both) that can't agree on a federal budget by the start of the corresponding fiscal year on October 1. The payroll administrator for the chamber that can't agree on a budget would put the paychecks of those members of Congress into an escrow account. There would be no retroactive pay for lawmakers for the period in which a budget hadn't been adopted.

In order to stay compliant with the 27th Amendment,  which limits Congress from changing compensation during a current session of Congress, this bill would take effect after February 21, 2021.

Argument in favor

If Congress can’t come to an agreement on one of their most essential responsibilities — funding the government — they don’t deserve to be paid on time.

Argument opposed

This bill is coercive and could force Congressional members to vote for legislation they don't fully agree with. Not every member in Congress is a millionaire.

Impact

Members of Congress, payroll administrators for Congress, the Secretary of State, and the President.

Cost of S. 39

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable. However, a CBO estimate of a previous version of this bill found that implementation would not have a significant impact on the federal budget.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) reintroduced this bill from the 115th Congress to block lawmakers from receiving paychecks if Congress fails to pass a budget: 

“No budget, no pay is simply something we do to put some teeth into the fact that [the budget process] has become a circus annually. You’d be laughed out of Indiana if this was anything close to how we do things there. When you come from a place as an entrepreneur, as a business guy you be laughed at if or you would be run of out of business through the harsh rules for the marketplace if you ran a business, a school board, or a state legislature like you do here. You need to be collectively accountable, and here with one year’s warning, get a budget here, you should be forced to do so and go where it really hurts and do not receive a paycheck.”
Sen. Braun adds that this bill could help resolve the debt crisis by serving as "some sort of legislation or some sort of straightjacket that’s put on the [budget] process so [Congress] can’t keep maneuvering its way out of it.” In an interview with WJLA, Sen. Braun elaborated: 
"Those of us that are [in Congress] have to put our money where our mouth is and we cannot get so far away from regular order in running the biggest business in the world, the federal government in such a sloppy way. If you get to the new budget year and you do not have a budget in place, I don't think anybody that's here, that’s had a year to work on it should get a paycheck. And then I'm hoping in both the House and the Senate. This one to me would be a good bill and like I said, it's applicable to today's times because we're not getting budgets done."
Rep. Jim Cooper (R-TN), who's sponsoring a House version of this bill, adds that negative consequences force Congressional action: 
“Congress is the only place in America where you get paid for showing up but not doing your work. I would rather reward members for good behavior. But the reality is when you threaten members of Congress, Congress finds a way to do its job.”
Romina Boccia, director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at the Heritage Foundation, expressed her support for this bill in an op-ed in The Daily Signal: 
"[Sen. Braun's bill] is a promising proposal in that it would give lawmakers more of a stake in completing a successful budget process cycle. The last time lawmakers passed all 12 spending bills on time was in 1996... Most Americans have to perform at least the minimal requirements of their jobs if they want to get paid. The same should hold for lawmakers. That’s just fair... We must revive the federal budget process as a critical tool to accomplish fiscal discipline. The No Budget, No Pay Act introduced by Braun offers one promising path to incentivizing lawmakers to follow the law. At the very least, it might embarrass them when they have to go back to their district and explain why they failed to earn their paycheck this year."
Various members of Congress have attempted to pass similar bills stopping Congressional pay when budgets aren't passed in the past, but none of them have been enacted into law. In 2013, both the Senate and the House passed a version of this bill as part of a plan to suspend the debt limit. Under that measure, lawmakers wouldn't get their paychecks unless each chamber passed a budget by April 15. However, that bill wasn't enacted as the two chambers never agreed on a unified budget resolution.

MoveOn.org, the Coalition to Reduce Spending, and the Heritage Foundation support this bill.


Of Note: Congress’ inability to come to an agreement on a budget has highlighted the disconnect between those in Washington D.C. and those outside the Beltway. For families and business owners, establishing a budget is a routine procedure, yet between April 29, 2009 and March 24, 2013 the Senate did not pass a budget. In fact, in the four decades since the current system for budgeting and spending tax dollars has been in effect, Congress has passed all its required appropriations measures on time only four times: FY 1977 (the first full fiscal year under the current system), 1989, 1995 and 1997.

Some members of Congress' willingness to delay their own paychecks has also emphasized the divide. For a member of Congress, the minimum salary is currently $174,000, and the median income for Americans is just over $43,000. In 2011, the median net worth for a member of Congress was $966,000, while the typical household net worth for Americans as a whole is under $67,000. Given members of Congress are making over $170,000 a year, missing a few paychecks probably won't be the end of the world for them. 


  • 110
    James
    Voted Yea
    05/29/2023

    This compromise is abhorrent. It has cuts in spending but no increase in taxes for wealthy. Increase taxes on all those who make $100,000 or more no cuts