by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
The Daily Sentinel
A popular blogger called Taylor Cone gave some great advice for budding inventors, discussing the process of prototyping: build it, then break it, then fix it. That’s a strategy Congress ought to try.
The House Appropriations Committee, Congress’s most powerful panel, has 63 members, only eight of whom have ever voted to do what the law requires of them, namely, to pass 12 appropriation bills to fund government agencies and programs. In fact, Congress has passed the required bills on time only four times in the last 40 years, the last time 26 years ago. Only 25 of the 435 House members and eight of the 100 senators were even in Congress then, all of them in their 70s, 80s, and 90s now. They may not even remember how it was supposed to work.
The budget process was outlined in 1974, even before the dean of the Congress, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (age 91) was there. That legislation established a simple process. The president submits a budget request in January, both chambers’ budget committees make whatever changes they want and pass budget resolutions in April, a joint conference committee irons out any differences, and both houses pass final versions, establishing revenue and spending targets for the next year. Other committees must honor those targets in passing the 12 appropriation bills, and any bills that authorize new spending or revenue.
In practice, that has never worked because there is no penalty for Congress ignoring the budget. So, why bother passing a budget at all? Or appropriation bills that stay within the budget? Instead, spending bills became Christmas trees, on which members could hang any pet projects, without regard to budget limits. The eventual result was the inability for Congress to agree on the Christmas tree, so that over time, it has simply quit passing appropriation bills, too.
