Last year could have been a big one for Congress, because it was able to pass its first joint balanced 10-year budget resolution since 2001 — a budget blueprint that would have put the nation’s finances on a sustainable fiscal path. Unfortunately, within a month it was ignored.
The truth is America’s budget process is broken, and this dysfunction is preventing Congress from tackling the pressing fiscal challenges facing our country. The current budget process is designed only to spend, which fails hardworking taxpayers. Each year, nearly $3 trillion is spent by Washington without any meaningful congressional review.
What America really needs is a budget process built to save. The Senate Budget Committee has been working on bipartisan solutions that would improve the way Congress considers budget legislation, update the antiquated accounting rules that affect the information Congress uses to make tax and spending decisions, and establish enforceable long-term fiscal targets.
The last time Congress reformed the budget process was in 1974. Times have changed and the 40-year old process has only grown more dysfunctional and antiquated. Today, budgets from Congress and the president are increasingly tossed aside, leaving the country with no long-term fiscal plan.
In the last 15 fiscal years, Congress failed to pass a budget resolution more than half of the time. Until 1998, it had never failed to pass a budget, and as a result of these regular successes, Washington had at least some sense of the budget and spending on a year-by-year basis. Unfortunately, not anymore.
Today, a growing portion of our budget is devoted to entitlements and other automatic spending. When Congress last reformed the budget process in 1974, this type of spending constituted only one-third of what was spent, with two-thirds of the spending provided annually.
Today, 70 percent of federal spending is essentially on auto-pay, year after year, without congressional review or approval. In 15 years, this runaway spending and interest will consume all of the taxes and revenues the federal government collects, crowding out spending on the functions we normally associate with good government, including national defense and border security.
This mandatory spending operates with no connection between funding decisions and program performance. Given that this spending often continues in perpetuity, the least we can do is ensure that it is spent effectively and efficiently.
The good news is there is bipartisan progress on steps Congress can take now to fix America’s broken budget process.