Budget Reform

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, earlier this year, Congress created a bipartisan committee--eight Republicans, eight Democrats, half from the House, half from the Senate. Their mission was to reform the budget process. It was an acknowledgement that our debt is climbing, and there is no structure in place to even address that debt, and any time our debt is addressed, it seems to be somewhat haphazard or accidental or some ad hoc committee is formed to go after debt every 10 years or so. This is spiraling, and we need to have something done, and it needs to be built into the structure.

Starting in April, these 16 Members of Congress started to meet, with these instructions: ``to significantly reform the budget and appropriations process''--significantly reform the process. The idea was simple. We are getting a bad budget product; we probably need to look at the budget process and be able to find out what is happening with the process.

You see, this process that we have was started in 1974. Right after Watergate, Congress created this new process with a budget, with a President's budget, with authorizing bills, with appropriating bills, and they would all work together for great transparency. It was a great plan on paper, but since 1974, it has worked only four times--four times.

Year after year, Americans keep saying the same thing: Why isn't the budget working again? Why is everything climbing? And every year, Congress says the same thing: We will fix it next year, next year, next year, next year. At some point, we have to admit it is a bad process, and we are not going to get a better product out of it. We have to fix that process, so we started meeting.

Today, we had our first set of votes on how we are going to significantly reform the budget process. We started meeting at about 10:30 this morning, and after 15 amendments and debate, the hearing was suspended at lunch for a week because a few of the Members wanted to fly home early for Thanksgiving, so now we will have to finish that work next week. It signaled me again that we don't seem to be serious in this body about dealing with debt and deficits, that even the groups selected to reform the process couldn't finish debate without breaking early for Thanksgiving.

So far, the only agreements to do significant reform--remember, that is the mandate; the only agreements that have been set so far have been to do budgets every 2 years rather than every year but still keep reconciliation and appropriations every year, change the membership of the Senate Budget Committee, and then to add a new, optional, bipartisan budget pathway in case some future Congress has lightning strike and they want to be able to try it. Those are the only agreements we have had so far. I don't know if that sounds like significant budget reform to you, but it doesn't to me. That sounds like just shifting things around.

For months we have researched the history of the budget process. We have identified different options that are out there. We have tried to figure out how we have gotten into this unworkable spot of budget deficits that we are in and how to fix it. For months we have worked on this. Then, as we got to this point, suddenly everyone started backing up to the status quo and saying: We will just try harder again.

It will not work just to try harder. The process has to change.

You see, we met with the leadership of the Congressional Budget Office and asked some very blunt questions about our debt and deficit that Americans inherently know the answer to. They can just feel it. We asked for simple, straightforward numbers. The Congressional Budget Office reported back to us that if we want to get back to the historic levels of debt and deficit that we have had for the past 50 years, if we want to get just to that level, we will have to start cutting or taxing $630 billion every year, starting in 2019, just to get back to the historic levels we have been at. If we want to stay just at this level of debt to GDP, just remain in this position that we are in right now of overwhelming debt, we will have to cut or tax an additional $400 billion every single year just to tread water. The reason for that is our interest rates are continuing to go up, and on $21 trillion in total debt right now, as our interest rates tick back up, we will soon be approaching $1 trillion in interest payments each year. That is more than all of our discretionary spending combined.

People ask the question: Why is the debt increasing suddenly? They look at things like the tax bill and ask: Is that the tax bill? No, it is not the tax bill from last year. In fact, after the tax bill from last year and the tax changes that were made for this year, there is actually more revenue coming into the Federal Treasury this year, after the tax changes, than there were last year. Let me run that by you again. Everyone seems to want to blame the tax bill for the increasing debt and deficit. There is more revenue coming into the Treasury this year than last year, even after the tax cuts, because the tax cuts spurred economic activity. More people have jobs, more people are paying taxes, more people are making money, so they are paying additional taxes. So even with the cut, more revenue is coming in. It is not about the tax cut; it is about skyrocketing interest on a $21 trillion debt, and there is nothing we can do about that other than begin to address it seriously.

It has been predictable. CBO has seen it for years, and it is here. The simple mandate of the Budget Reform Committee was to bring out a significant reform in the process so that we can address this together, but so far this has been one of the most frustrating processes that I have had in my short time here in the Senate because most don't want to solve it because the decisions will be hard.

Let me lay out some of the options I think do fix this. What are some of the hard choices? The first thing I have heard over and over again in this budget reform process is that we need to get to a bipartisan process. I agree. Republicans and Democrats alike are going to have to look at the debt and deficit and say: We have to be able to work together. There seem to be all of these different gimmicks for how we are going to try to work together when we are avoiding the one simple way. There is one simple way to make sure we do things in a bipartisan manner; it is called passing the law.

Right now, the budget, as it is done every year, is not law. The Senate writes a budget, the House writes a budget, neither of them are actually passed as law.

The President never signs them. The President creates a budget, the House creates a budget, the Senate creates a budget, and then everyone kind of debates for a year, and then we get to appropriations and fight over appropriations at the end of the year because those are actually law.

Well, here is the simple solution. If you want to avoid government shutdowns, if you want to end all of the end-of-the-year fighting, if you want to make budgeting an actually bipartisan process, there is a simple solution: Make the budget the law. I know that may sound overly simplistic to people who are outside of this Senate body, and many people may think the budget is already a law, but it is not. It is not a law, because without a law, you can create partisan documents and debate it and hash it around for a full year and then go fight at the very end of the year before the government shutdown happens, when there is lots of pressure.

The simple way to resolve this at the beginning is to make the fight about the budget at the beginning of the year--long before there is a discussion of government shutdowns. Make the budget itself a law. Push the House and the Senate and the White House to sit down early in the year--before May 31--resolve how we are going to spend, what we are going to do, what is the plan, what are we going to save, and then pass it as a law. When that happens, then all of the work can happen after that. Then you do all of the appropriations bills. Then you talk about what you are going to save. Then you fight through all the details of it. But you have established the big deal that takes away the fight at the end and moves the fight to the beginning. But, for some reason, most everyone on this committee is fighting with the one simple, obvious answer: Make the budget a law instead of a partisan political document every year. That has not worked.

Let's fight it out early. We are going to have budget fights. We have disagreements in this body. Fine, let's have our disagreements, but let's have them early rather than holding the entire country hostage at the end of the year right as we approach a government shutdown. Let's lay out in the budget debt-to-GDP targets. Then we look at the gross domestic product--that is GDP. What do we produce in total as a country? What is the total amount of debt we can handle as a country?

Let's create a plan and then, throughout the course of the year, actually execute that plan. That is what every family and what every business does. They look at the revenue that is coming in. If they have debt, such as their mortgage or cars, they plan and allot for that. We don't. The budget is a political document, and then we make up spending as we go through the year without a significant plan. Let's make the budget a law, create our debt-to-GDP targets in it, and then execute those throughout the course of the year.

Most Americans have heard something about appropriations bills. They have heard that on some news report or something. The 1921 Budget and Accounting Act requires that we do a certain number of appropriations bills. Right now, 12 bills are required. It breaks up the major parts of government spending into 12 little spots.

Basically, we have 12 different bills set aside for spending. We never have a single bill set aside for saving. Let me run that past my colleagues again. There is no plan for a bill that is set aside for savings. So one of the things I have recommended, in addition to making the budget a law to force everyone to actually have the fight early rather than late, is to add a 13th bill, to do our 12 appropriations bills, and the 13th bill will be a bill that is set aside every session of Congress that is focused on what we are going to save, forcing Congress every session to have to stop and have the debate. How are we going to save money? What are we going to do? Each Congress can decide how much they want to save, but every Congress has to work a little bit on this.

Currently, every time we fight debt--it may be once a decade that we have a big meeting on debt. We are never going to get ahold of $21 trillion trying to fight it once a decade; we are going to have to do it little by little by little and chip it away.

This Congress, just like the last Congress, just like the one before, didn't do significant work on debt reduction because there was no deadline and the work is hard. If I know anything about this Congress from the short time I have been here, it is that it will not do anything until it has to. So if we created in law a requirement that every session of Congress, there has to be this what I call the 13th bill--this bill that is designed to say that Congress has to debate how much they are going to save and where they are going to save--it would at least force that moment where we have to resolve things.

There has been no dialogue so far on how we really reform the debt limit. The debt limit is only an American invention. It was designed to control our spending and control our debt, but I can assure you it has not worked since 78 times we have raised the debt limit. The debt limit has become a debt cliff and a big fight rather than something that actually controls our spending.

If we would put in place something to actually cause Congress to have a vote on debt, I would be glad to deal with the debt limit--it is drama every time--and substitute it for something that is really going to reduce our debt burden. But that is not the discussion. The discussion in the committee is not about trying to actively reduce our debt or to put into a plan a way to reduce our debt; it is just, what can we do to take out the debt ceiling vote entirely because it is tricky. That doesn't help us. That is not significant reform, just removing something because it is tricky. Significant reform on our budget process is when we replace it with something that is effective.

Every year, the President of the United States since 1921 has submitted something called the President's budget. Millions of dollars are spent compiling this big, giant document that no one reads. It becomes a big political document. Every single President has put one out every year since 1921, and not a single one of them has ever passed--not one--but lots of time and attention is spent on the ``President's budget''.

There is a simpler way to do this. Have the President turn over their priorities, turn over the agency issues that they see on spending. It is perfectly acceptable for the President to do that. But don't create this big pomp-and-circumstance, expensive process of having this giant President's budget that really means nothing.

How about shifting our budgeting and our whole process to the calendar year rather than the fiscal year? Many Americans don't know that Congress runs from October 1 until September 30. Guess what. It is the middle of November right now. Our appropriations are not done for this year. They are not done for last year. We have carried them over on something called a continuing resolution--what we hear people refer to as a CR--just like was done the year before, just like was done the year before, and just like was done the year before.

Congress actually functions on the calendar year, but we pretend to function on a fiscal year. That just guarantees that every October, November, and December, we have budget chaos as we try to figure out how to run the system. How about this for a simple solution: Why don't we actually run it on a calendar year, because that is how we actually do it, including this year. That would mean we would actually plan and structure for that. That is significant budget reform. But currently the conversation in the budget reform committee is, no, we will try it again next year, and we will see if we can make September 30 work. It won't, by the way, but no one wants to actually make the shift.

There has been a lot of debate about something called reconciliation. Reconciliation is a process that is intensely broken. It was designed by the Budget Act to be something to really focus on debt and deficit, but it has become a fight with our Parliamentarian and with each other about how to stick in something that is not debt and deficit related.

Why don't we simplify the language? Why don't we clean up the reconciliation process? Why don't we make it what it was designed to be and make sure it is clear so that reconciliation is used by every Congress to deal with debt and deficit? It is a doable task. We have laid out multiple different proposals for how to do that. So far, they have all been turned down.

We have to figure out a way to get better numbers. If we can't get better numbers, we are not going to get better results. We have to get real numbers from the Congressional Budget Office and from Joint Tax. We have to allow Joint Tax and other groups to do dynamic scoring so we get a predictive way to look at the spending and the tax and see what happens.

We have to have real consequences if Congress doesn't do a budget. Americans know if Congress doesn't do a budget, they just leave town and say: We didn't get it done this year. How about this for a simple idea that would be effective even today, if we were doing it. There is a set deadline in statute, in law, when the budget has to be completed, when the appropriations bills have to be completed, and when they have to be signed. If those milestones or deadlines are not hit, Congress cannot adjourn, cannot leave town. I don't care if Thanksgiving is approaching--you set a deadline, and if it is not completed by that deadline, Congress has to be in session every day, including weekends, until it is done. That is a simple solution.

If Congress is in session every single day, at some point, they will say: I want to go home and see my family, so we need to get this resolved. I would agree. There is not a pressure point better than forcing Congress to stay in town and stay in session until the work is done. We will see if that is actually added to the proposal, but so far, that is trending away from just saying to Congress in the future and now, no, we will try to get that done, but I am not sure we really will.

If we want to end government shutdowns, then keep Congress in session. If we want to end long continuing resolutions, keep Congress in session until it is done. It is a pretty straightforward process. It would benefit our economy. It would benefit this Congress.

Even simple things--it is fascinating to me. There is an internal process called vote-arama. It is awful. If you are ever here in the Senate watching it or around it, it is terrible. It is around the budget process, and it is an endless debate/vote, but none of the votes actually count. They are all messaging votes. They don't actually do anything. But anyone can bring up anything at any time, and we go through this endless series of messaging votes, trying to make each other look bad politically. It is a terrible process.

It is fixable. In fact, we brought up an amendment today in the process--one of those 15 amendments that were debated before people left early for Thanksgiving--we brought up an amendment today to fix the vote-arama, and it failed because folks on the other side wanted to have messaging votes just in case it came up.

In the last vote-arama that happened--an all-night, perpetual, meaningless vote series--the last vote in the vote-arama was a messaging vote: Should we end vote-aramas or not? It passed unanimously. Everyone in this Chamber says they hate it, but when there was a real option to get rid of it, they kept it because the status quo is easier than change.

Significant budget reform was the mandate. That has not happened so far--not even small budget reform has happened so far. We will come back after Thanksgiving. We will have another series of amendments. We have an opportunity to get this right and to fix a very broken process. I will pray that over Thanksgiving, Members of this body and of the House determine that $21 trillion worth of debt needs significant reform, not just tweaks around the edges, and that when we come back after Thanksgiving, people will actually approach this seriously instead of the flippant way it has been approached so far. We have to get this done. I commend us to get it done.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source