CounterStrikeMedia - CONGRESSIONAL REFORM

FIXING THE US DEBT & BUDGET CRISIS

10/16/2018

A Federal Budget Plan to Avert a Debt Crisis
Brian Riedl, E21

Annual budget deficits are projected to soon surpass $1 trillion, on their way to $2 trillion or even $3 trillion in 10 to 15 years. Social Security and Medicare face a combined $100 trillion cash deficit over the next 30 years, which would push the national debt to nearly 200% of the gross domestic product (GDP). At that point, interest on that debt would consume 40% of all tax revenues—or more, if interest rates rise. Unless reforms are enacted, global markets will, at some point, stop lending to the U.S. at plausible interest rates. Read more here....

MEDICARE FOR ALL WILL FAIL & REDISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE UNENDING

9/7/2018

H ow Medicare for All Will Squeeze Blue States
Chris Pope, National Review

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, along with other single-payer advocates, has argued that the federal government could cover all Americans’ medical needs for much less than they currently spend privately. Much attention has focused on the impact of dramatically reducing payments to health-care providers, and on the magnitude of the tax increases involved. But “Medicare for All” would also lead to an enormous redistribution among states — cutting the health-care resources available to Sanders’s state by almost a third. Read more here....

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT

8/22/2018

The Critical Importance of Congressional Oversight
Chuck Grassley, Real Clear Policy

Congress must grow to check the administrative state
James C. Capretta | RealClearPolicy

James Capretta explores the rise of the administrative state and the corresponding decline in power of the legislative branch, explaining that Congress' persistent failure to properly fulfill the role of checking the executive branch in recent years, is one reason the nation's politics are out of balance. Capretta argues that Congress could begin to reassert itself by building stronger institutional support for the development of specific legislative responses to emerging issues and problems. The legislative branch has steadily lost power to the executive branch because it does not have the capacity to develop and implement legislative policies that can competently address the many challenges that present themselves in a modern economy. House and Senate members need more help from true experts to fulfill their constitutional roles.

The 'administrative state' needs to follow the rule of law by Congress
Peter J. Wallison | The Hill

Rules and regulations by federal agencies, which many now call the administrative state, are quickly supplanting Congress as the principal source of the rules that American citizens and businesses have to obey. Peter Wallison argues that the power of the administrative state must be reined in if we are to remain a nation where the rule of law prevails. The actions of administrative agencies such as the Justice Department must not go beyond what Congress authorized, and the courts should enforce this limit.

HOW TO REFORM ENTITLEMENTS? START WITH BUDGET REFORM

5/6/2018

how_the_budget_process_is_biased_against_fixing_entitlement_spending.pdf
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3 ideas for budget process reform
James C. Capretta | Real Clear Policy

Highlighting the problems with the current budget process through public hearings and developing some creative ideas for reform would be progress for budget reform at this point, argues James Capretta. He proposes that the joint committee should consider three ideas to improve the current process. First, they should allow the budget resolution to set statutory caps on appropriated spending. Second, they should scale back the time devoted to passing annual appropriations bills. Finally, Capretta argues that Congress should build a long-term focus into the budget process.

Testimony: The budget resolution: Content, timeliness, and enforcement
James C. Capretta | Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform
The current federal budget process hinders Congress' ability to make timely and orderly decisions in addressing fiscal challenges. Three solutions could change the role of the budget resolution and reform the process.

The congressional budget process: A brief primer
James C. Capretta | AEI Economic Perspectives
James Capretta discusses what the role of the budget request is, what the congressional budget looks like in theory, and what it looks like in reality, as well as several other key features of the congressional budget process. Capretta argues that the current process was written for a time when appropriations spending was dominant; it does not work as well with so much of the federal budget devoted to spending that occurs automatically on entitlement programs. Further, he concludes that the current process does not facilitate executive-legislative agreement on budgetary aggregates, which is an important reason for instability and uncertainty in federal finances.

A PLAN FOR FISCAL HAWKSBy EPPC Senior Fellow Henry Olsen
National Review

Republicans who want spending restraint probably represent only about 10 to 15 percent of the total Republican-voting electorate, but without their support Republicans cannot win. That gives the fiscal-restraint advocates a strong hand to play, if they play it correctly. Read More

THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET PROCESS

2/10/2018

The congressional budget process: A brief primer
James C. Capretta

Political institutions and the governmental burden on business
Weifeng Zhong | Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics

SEXUAL HARASSMENT & CONGRESS

1/4/2018

WHY SCORING A BILL IS USELESS

1/3/2018

Transparency for Congress' Scorekeepers
Matt Jensen | National Affairs
Two of the most important and powerful agencies of the federal government are barely known to the American public. The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation are Congress' scorekeepers. The assumptions made by the CBO and the JCT, and the assessments they produce, shape nearly every federal policy debate. These projections come to be treated as facts, shaping the way various policy proposals are understood and debated.

WHY IS THE FEDERAL BUDGT A MESS: A PARLIAMENTARY PROCESS

9/3/2017

AEI

CONSISTENT POLICY RULES REQUIRE CURRENT POLICY BASELINE

FIX THE FEDERAL BASELINE FIRST FOR BUDGETING

confused_about_the_budget__here’s_a_quick_rundown._-_the_washington_post.pdf
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this_is_why_the_congressional_budget_process_is_broken_-_the_washington_post.pdf
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How The Budget Control Act Damages Military Planning

7/26/2017

repeal_the_budget_control_act_-_wsj.pdf
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Fixing Congress In 10 Easy Steps

7/17/2017

The Weekly Standard

Why Congress Remains Broken: The Rules of Men vs. Constitutional Order

6/22/2017

E21

The Consequences of Trump's First Budget

5/28/2017

Weekly Standard

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & BUDGETARY ANALYSIS: DEFENSE TRENDS TRUMP'S BUDGET

Max Boot writes: Bolton is right that Trump’s policies have been more conventional than expected, but he is wrong to ascribe this development to insidious foreign policy elites. President Trump is simply being forced to acknowledge the complex realities that he refused to grapple with on the campaign trail. - Commentary

Joint Chiefs, Dunford, Explains How Congressional Dysfunction Destroys U.S. Superpower Status

Why Our Military Advantage Is Eroding

U.S. News & World Report w/ Political Cartoons

AEI: Problems With Trump's First Budget

Understanding The Federal Budget

5/26/2017

CBO SCORES ARE FANTASY

HOOVER

REFORMING THE C.B.O.

WHY REFORM THE CBO

Streamlining Foggy Bottom

4/24/2017

Washington Post

Is Congress Broken?

3/24/2017

AEI

Understanding Revenue Neutrality

2/27/2017

U.S. News & World Report

Budget ReForm

1/17/2017

e21

How Congress Has Changed

1/16/2017

AEI

How to Restore Federalism, Fixing a Post Imperial Presidency

12/20/2016

5 Ways To Restore Separation of Powers Doctrine.WSJ.pdf
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Apathy in the Executive

Is the 115th a Reform Congress?

12/7/2016

Real Clear Policy

Is Congress Broken??

10/12/2016

American Enterprise Institute Book Review

Reviving Discretion in U.S. Budget

9/15/2016

e21 Manhattan Institute

Budget Analysis, e21

Reforming U.S. Congressional Budget

reviving a constitutional congress: dr. demuth

3/24/2016

Dr. Demuth Imprimis.pdf
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Meg greenfield's wisdom on washington & reform

3/24/2016

The late, great Meg Greenfield, editor at large for Newsweek once remarked that if you want to understand Washington, you need to remember 'high school'. The cliques that animate social authority are no different throughout D.C. Authority is ranked in a hierarchy, for real power is dispersed from appropriations committees to foreign policy, then Judicial.

Given the near fatal beat-down the Democratic Party received on November 04, 2014, the GOP should assess HOW budgetary matters are resolved. This is the key to consolidating meaningful reform.

The House has not had 'regular order' for sometime, it has remained stuck in 'continuing resolutions'. The threat of opening the House & Senate to debate on the process of how budgets are constructed is needed.

Why?

Because without regular order, the entire government lurches from one crisis to another with irresponsible threats of default, a government shutdown, a manufactured fiscal cliff, failed super-committee, valiant bi-partisan commissions, task forces and gangs. LOL. All of this is to broker political agreements between parties whose principals are irreconcilable. To break gridlock and its attendant partisan polarization, the entire process must be reformed.

Senator Pat Murray and Chairman Paul Ryan, chairs of the Budget Committees have stepped forward with credible plans to reform both chambers. Any meaningful reform must include four elements.

1. Federal Budgets must include all spending and revenues. Currently, both chambers focus on 'discretionary spending', the money that Congress appropriates to keep federal agencies doing their respective tasks. This only involves a third of federal spending. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and entitlement programs run on autopilot. Reform would address this issue along with the heavy volume of tax expenditures throughout the tax code. The budget process itself must construct an engagement for the setting of priorities.

2. The Budget Process must be completed on time and understandable. The process called 'regular order' was established with the Budget Reform Act of 1974.
This enabled Committees to pursue agendas independently and without any centralized political oversight. Prior to the Reform act, both spending and revenue measures were dealt separately. Simplifying this process would detail budgeting for two year intervals.

3. The construction of the federal budget would have the active participation of the entire Congress with leadership from the executive. This means up-or-down-votes on the massive programs that remain on auto-pilot. Currently, the segmented committee process permits entire classes of Congressional membership to op-out of voting in the construction of budgets.

4. Adopt standard managerial cost accounting and capital budgeting. Currently, both chambers use accounting methodology that obscures the very clarity required in the assessment of costs, expenditures and overheads adding nearly 40% annually. Although it has NOT been studied by the Congressional Budget Office, numerous credible economists (monetarists in particular) note the role of fiscal policy constitutive to inflation. A coherent system of comparative cost analysis used by industry would assist government budgeting, addressing clarity of expense accounts, transparency and deliverables, including subsidized credit policy as 'rent seeking'.

If the G.O.P. is serious about reform, it will start with HOW budgets are created.