GovernmentExecutive.com

There are less than 20 legislative days left before Congress is supposed to adopt the fiscal 2004 budget resolution. That is probably hard to believe given that the 108th Congress is convening for the first time this week. But according to the legislative calendar published in December by Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the House is only planning to take votes on three and a half days in January, four and a half days in February, eight days in March and three and a half days in April before it takes off for spring break.

This limited legislative schedule will not be much of a problem for most issues. It will take some time for committees to get their members, develop an agenda and get legislation to the point where it can be moved to the House and Senate floors.

But it will be a real problem for the budget, which is always one of the first issues to be dealt with each year. And the time available to work on the fiscal 2004 budget will be even less because Congress and the White House still have to finish the remaining fiscal 2003 appropriations.

If Congress were ready to pass the actual appropriations by time the current continuing resolution expires at the end of this week, the amount of time taken away from the 2004 budget debate would be minimal. That is not the case, however. The plan is for another CR to be passed before the current one expires on Jan. 11. Congress then hopes to spend the few legislative days that occur at the end of the month to pass a fiscal 2003 omnibus appropriation that includes the funding normally provided in all 11 bills.

Assuming the omnibus appropriation is enacted by the end of January, that means there really will be only about 17 legislative days available in the House before the fiscal 2004 budget resolution is supposed to be adopted.

But this assumes that the omnibus will in fact be adopted by the end of January. That is likely but not guaranteed, given the appropriations committees' dislike of passing anything but individual appropriations and the prospect that at least some Republicans and Democrats will balk at the funding levels for some programs. It also may be less likely if Congress must spend time at the end of January debating a formal declaration of war with Iraq.

The only way the 2004 budget process will be able to move forward under these circumstances will be for the House and Senate leadership to cut corners. For example, incoming Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles, R-Okla., has indicated that he will hold a bare minimum number of hearings before starting to mark up a budget resolution. The House Budget Committee is expected to do the same.

In addition, the House and Senate Republican leadership and the White House appear to be planning to do much of the work on the fiscal 2004 budget behind closed doors.

There has already been some serious talk about the House and Senate "preconferencing" - that is, deciding before the public debate begins - the spending levels for most or all of the programs that will be funded in the omnibus appropriation and then severely limiting the debate itself. In recent days there have also been discussions about doing the same thing with the fiscal 2004 budget resolution and reconciliation bill that is likely to be used to enact the tax cut the administration will propose.

Without these shortcuts, it will be hard for the administration to achieve one of its supposed goals - getting its tax proposal enacted relatively early in the year. In fact, the limited legislative calendar in the House combined with a war in Iraq could easily make it difficult for the tax changes proposed by the administration to go into effect until August or September unless the leadership takes steps like these.

It will also make it very difficult for the 2004 appropriations process to get underway in a timely manner. The limited number of days available for legislative work, the need to complete work on fiscal 2003 and reconciliation and the many other issues (like unemployment insurance, prescription drugs and Iraq) that will be on the agenda this year means that, even before Congress gets to work, it is possible to predict that very few of the 2004 appropriations will be enacted by the time the fiscal year begins next October.

And that makes the DeLay legislative calendar rather than the president's budget, a CBO analysis, or the congressional budget resolution the most important budget document of the year.

Note: The DeLay calendar includes nine additional dates between now and April 12 with "Votes postponed until 6:30 p.m." It is possible that substantive debates could be conducted then and, if that is the case, each of these dates should be counted as an additional half day on the calendar. It is far more likely, however, that little serious legislative work will actually occur. In many or most cases the only thing members may have to do that day is what is often referred to on Capitol Hill as a "bed check," that is, show up and record your presence so that their leadership knows you are in Washington for the votes scheduled the next day.

Question Of The Week

Unfinished Business. The last "I Won A 2002 Budget Battle" coffee/tea/hot chocolate mug that will ever be awarded goes to Georgia Blalock, a budget officer for the Railroad Retirement Board in Chicago. Georgia knew, was able to guess or had access to a library where she could see that the cover of the bicentennial fiscal 1976 federal budget was red, white and blue.

This Week's Question. The mugs may be gone but the all-new and incredibly spectacular "I Won A 2003 Budget Battle" mouse pads are here and looking for a home. To get the first of the 50 or so that will be awarded this year, all you have to do is answer this week's very easy question correctly and get your response selected as the winner. The question: The deficit is determined by comparing spending to what?

Send your response to scollender@nationaljournal.com by 5 p.m. PST on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2003. You must include your mailing address so the mouse pad can be sent if you win. If there is more than one correct response, the winner will be selected at random from all those who submit the correct answer.