Budget Battles: The reason for biennial budgets

What is the real motivation behind the sudden interest by a variety of representatives and senators in the two-year budget and appropriations process (S. 92) being promoted by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M.?

It is hard to argue with the rationale Domenici and his staff have been giving for changing to biennial budgets and appropriations-that the procedural requirements and political difficulties of the current budget process have made budgeting a year-round effort in Washington that leaves little time to do anything else. The seeming inability of Congress and the president to get the work done by the start of a fiscal year generally has meant that at best one budget debate ends just as the next must begin.

According to Domenici this has meant far less attention paid to oversight of the implementation of existing federal programs than ought to be the case. This would be corrected under S. 92 by requiring the budget and appropriations for the biennium (the next two fiscal years) to be enacted in the first session of each Congress-that is, in the first year after an election. The second session-which would always be an election year-would be available for oversight and non-budget legislation.

It is not at all clear, however, that everyone's motives are as pure as Domenici's appear to be.

For example, as one-year budget projections are continually shown to be incapable of being accurate for the whole year, it becomes increasingly obvious to many members of the House and Senate that two-year appropriations will seldom last through a full two-year period and that at least one supplemental appropriation would probably be needed every second session. This is likely to be a fairly large omnibus bill covering a number of different areas-exactly the type of legislation that allows pet projects and other provisions to be more easily hidden. It is also the type of bill that, outside the usual budget process, gets far less attention from the media and so is harder to follow.

In addition, this type of legislation puts the appropriations committees and appropriators firmly in the political driver's seat, as other members have to come to them to get their project or provision included.

There is also a question as to whether the authorization committees will really devote any more time to oversight even if they have it. These committees have little to do with the current one-year budget process except when there is a large reconciliation bill involving programs within their jurisdiction. These committees could have already been doing the heightened oversight that S. 92 envisions-and the fact that it has not been happening up to now may be a strong indication that there is little interest.

Furthermore, reconciliation efforts like those that have occurred over the past decade will be far less likely in the era of budget surpluses we seem to have entered. As a result, much of the time the authorization committees have had to spend up to now under the one-year budget process is likely to be freed up for other things anyway-even if a two-year budget and appropriations process is not enacted.

It is also possible that interest in two-year budgets and appropriations has increased as members of Congress have started to realize that the astoundingly good economic performance of the U.S. economy means that voters don't expect or perhaps even want their representatives and senators to be voting very often on economic legislation.

But the real motivation for the sudden increase in support for S. 92 may be far less altruistic. Passing the budget and appropriations in the first session of a Congress would mean there would be little to keep representatives and senators in Washington when they could be running for re-election. A two-year cycle would allow them to return to their districts and states far earlier to campaign full time than they can do under the current annual budget and appropriations process.

S. 92 would eliminate nearly all the anxiety that many members of Congress feel when, in a year like this, there are many close races, the majority in a least one chamber is up for grabs and there is not enough time for all the legislative business that must get done before the fiscal year.

The easiest way to think about this is as follows: If S. 92 were already in effect, the budget and appropriations for the coming fiscal year presumably would have been enacted as required by last Oct. 1. This would mean that Congress could adjourn for the year right now and campaign non-stop for the next eight months.

Question Of The Week

Last Week's Question. The question was, "If there were to be a national museum about the history and culture of the federal budget, what should it be called?" Judging from the many, many, many responses suggesting something like the "National Museum of Pork" you would think that everyone was trying to create a building dedicated to a particular branch of agriculture. The winner of an "I Won A 2000 Budget Battle" T-shirt, however, is Kathy Ruffing, a long-time staffer at the Congressional Budget Office, whose unusual answer must be quoted in its entirety to do it justice:

Face it, the Museum of Budgeting would be a flop. Who besides us would visit? And how could the curator mount any exhibits? We veterans of the budget wars would never donate our old stuff, knowing that someone, someday, will ask about the Grace Commission recommendations, or the cap adjustments resulting from Operation Desert Storm, or . . .

The solution is to give up the notion of a museum and settle for a memorial in some heavily-trafficked place. I envision a bronze statue of the Unknown Budget Analyst, wearily surrounded by the tools of his or her trade: computer, pencils (sans erasers), Budget Appendix, Budget Enforcement Act (heavily thumbed), a vast collection of Monthly Treasury Statements, a dartboard, Magic 8-Ball, etc.

And where to put it? In the ballpark.