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Congressional Reform

FIXING CONGRESS

3/17/2023

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Put the People Back in the People’s House
Kevin R. Kosar and John Maxwell Hamilton | RealClearPolitics
Policy debates in Washington need to be re-centered. This can be achieved by congressional committees, which have jurisdiction over policymaking, bringing average voters into their deliberations.

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My sense is many conservatives, and without speaking for them, those put into categories here, would disagree with this framing. There is a lot of nuance within the movement, and as @ElbridgeColby's tweet noted, views are perhaps better understood as a spectrum with some overlap. https://t.co/JV0dekxT1o

— Amanda J. Rothschild (@Rothschild_AJ) March 17, 2023
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HEALTH CARE SPENDING = FIXING THE BUDGET

12/8/2022

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The Fed’s Quantitative Easing Gamble Costs Taxpayers Billions
With the Federal Reserve System likely to post its first annual operating loss since 1915, Paul H. Kupiec and Alex J. Pollock explain why it happened and how it will cost taxpayers for years to come. According to Kupiec and Pollock, the Fed’s quantitative easing investments “created a massive Fed interest rate risk exposure that could generate mind-boggling losses if interest rates rose—as they now have.”
Conservative Humanism & the Challenge of the Post-Humanist Age
Budgetary Long Game
The debt-ceiling fight won’t bring entitlement reform, but Republican plans to curtail long-term federal spending will grow increasingly attractive over time.
Medicare Is Central to Fixing Health Care and the Federal Budget
James C. Capretta | Hill
If the program changed to encourage cost reduction through competition and consumer choice, the entire system would benefit from a renewed focus on efficiency in the provision of service to patients.
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JOHN B. TAYLOR FROM HOOVER ON U.S. SPENDING & GOVERNANCE

3/27/2021

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The US Debt—Causes and Consequences
featuring John B. Taylor

The federal government is borrowing at unprecedented rates. Spending regularly exceeds revenue, and this shortfall is predicted to grow dramatically in the near future. The result is a large and growing federal debt that threatens future Americans’ prosperity and security. What are the consequences of this higher federal debt and what can we do about it?
THEODORE DALRYMPLE
The Degeneration of Public Administration
Today’s bureaucrats speak and think in a language of social-managerial gibberish.
Wasteful Local Stimulus Funding Could Mark The End Of Competitive Federalism
by Paul E. Peterson, Carlos Lastra-Anadon via The Hill
A fiscal flood of biblical proportions — $1.3 trillion — is descending upon state and local governments via four pieces of congressional legislation enacted in the name of COVID relief. No less than $738 billion is scheduled to be spent in the current fiscal year. The Biden administration and congressional progressives are promising trillions more. The vast transfer of funds to lower tiers of government threatens the U. S. federal system as we know it.
How To End TheseThreats of Default
Editorial of The New York Sun | October 1, 2021
https://www.nysun.com/editorials/how-to-end-thesethreat-of-default/91676/
ARPIT GUPTA
Keeping New Yorkers in the City
With more remote workers opting for suburban life, city policymakers take steps to retain residents.
What is America’s role in the world?
Jonathan Schanzer 
— Washington Examiner
OBITUARY: The U.S.-Led World Order died in Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021, three days shy of its 76th birthday. Cause of death was internal bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. The Order was born Sept. 2, 1945, on the USS Missouri. Early on, it protected the world from socialism and communism. Later, it defended millions of people from terrorism. Though it was maligned in recent years, the U.S.-Led World Order was a devoted champion of democracy around the globe. Its enduring legacy is the spread of unprecedented technological, medical, and economic advances worldwide. Read more
Doctrine for Diplomacy: To Remain Relevant, the U.S. State Department Needs a New Statecraft, by Dan Spokojny
An Alternative History of AirLand Battle, Part II,
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AEI SCHOLARSHIP TACKLES EXECUTIVE & CONGRESSIONAL REFORM

11/10/2020

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JOHN STEELE GORDON
A National Disgrace
The federal budget process threatens America’s future.
The annual celebration of the executive branch has become a more tragic story as the first branch of our government, the legislative branch, has increasingly taken the lead in its own diminution, so that it might be relieved of the burden of taking the lead in anything else, writes Yuval Levin.
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The Congressional Roots of Our Polarization
by james r. rogers
Over 20 years before Gingrich, Democrats implemented reforms intended to shift the House of Representatives in a decidedly liberal direction.
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How Congress tricks Americans  
Kevin R. Kosar and David Schoenbrod | "Understanding Congress"
Hiring government leaders: Lessons from the private sector
Reviving the Congress
​A look into our fiscal future
Governing priorities
​Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline in Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform
 Congress today is falling short. Fewer bills, worse oversight, and more dysfunction. But why? In a new volume of essays, the contributors investigate an underappreciated reason Congress is struggling: It doesn’t have the internal capacity to do what our constitutional system requires of it. Leading scholars chronicle the institutional decline of Congress and the decades-long neglect of its own internal investments in the knowledge and expertise necessary to perform as a first-rate legislature. Today’s legislators and congressional committees have fewer — and less expert and experienced — staff than the executive branch or K Street. This leaves them at the mercy of lobbyists and the administrative bureaucracy.  READ MORE
Our overwhelmed Congress
Do we need Congress?
House must take the first step to modernize how Congress works
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WHY CONTINUING RESOLUTIONS FOR THE LONG WAR AREN'T WORKING

12/21/2019

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With low interest rates, should we really ignore budget deficits?  
Desmond Lachman | AEIdeas
Special Edition: National Security Costs and Benefits
Clifford D. May, Bradley Bowman and Rep. Jim Banks — FDD's Foreign Podicy
The threats facing the United States and its allies are not static. They grow. They transform. America’s defense strategies and defense budgets need to respond with creativity and muscularity. In November, the U.S. Congress employed a legislative tool known as a Continuing Resolution (CR) to provide temporary funding for the U.S. Military. Now, in December, there is another funding deadline looming. But this kind of uncertainty puts America’s national security and our military personnel at heightened and unnecessary risk. Listen Here
  • ‘Claw them back’: China threatens Huawei’s foreign customers amid warnings from US
  • WaPo’s Josh Rogin: The Chinese threat to U.S. research institutions is real
Budgeting Through Rose-Colored Glasses
Brian Chen, City Journal

Even before Covid-19 blew a hole in their budgets, many states and cities were only one modest downturn away from fiscal calamity. With unfunded pension liabilities looming, a decline in revenue was bound to push states and municipalities over the edge at some point. The only question was when; the pandemic gave us the answer.Yet, while seemingly invincible places like New York City are now on life support, once-moribund areas are getting a second wind. 
Read more here.... 
How the Pandemic Is Shaping the Economy
Allison Schrager & Daniel Kennelly, City Journal
China Has a Few Things to Teach the U.S. Economy 
– Noah Smith, Bloomberg
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WHY CONGRESS CANNOT DELEGATE ITS AUTHORITY, THE DOCTRINE OF NON-DELEGATION & THE MYTH OF CO-EQUAL BRANCHES OF GOVMINT

10/23/2019

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Any new nondelegation doctrine must be based on clear, judicially administrable principles rooted in the Constitution itself, writes Adam White.
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The conservative majority on the Roberts Court is likely to restore nondelegation doctrine
Peter J. Wallison | AEIdeas
The Myth of “Coequal” Branches of the Federal Government
By Richard J. Bishirjian on Oct 22, 2019 10:00 pm
The popular myth, retold almost daily by members of Congress, that the Constitution established three separate, but equal branches, of government has no basis in fact. The true intent of the Framers was for the Congress to be supreme because it is the nature of representative government that the most representative branch should be most ...
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HOW JAY COST & JOHN TAYLOR FIXES OUR CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC

9/18/2019

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Structural, Not Cyclical, Budget Reform
by John B. Taylor via Economics One
Today I published a column in Project Syndicate on fiscal policy. I am positive about pro-growth effects of the tax reform in the 2017 tax act and of the greater use of cost-benefit analysis in the recent regulatory reform effort. And the recent trade deals—the USMCA and “
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AEI
In search of responsible republican government, part 2: The parties as a solution
 
Jay Cost | September 2019 
 
  • Although political parties have long been in disrepute, they can help make our government more responsive to the public interest.

  • A party’s purpose is to win elections for its members, but depending on how party rules are structured, parties can advance or hinder republican government.

  • Changes to nominating procedures, campaign finance, and internal party rules could make the parties work more effectively for the national good.
In search of responsible republican government, part 1: The institutional problem
 Jay Cost | AEI | August 6, 2019
Restoring Congress: The parties are a solution
 Jay Cost | NationalReview.com | June 17, 2019
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GETTING REPUBLICAN GOVMINT WORKING. . . AGAIN, WHY THE PARTIES ARE BROKEN & NEW RATIOS FROM THE CBO

8/10/2019

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Why Budget Negotiations Succeed—and Why They Fail
10 Blocks podcast
In search of responsible republican government, part 1
Jay Cost | American Enterprise Institute 
This report examines the origins and developments of dual issues — the decline of the legislature and the rise of the presidency.
Updates To The Budget Calculator
via Budget Matters, America Off Balance
We are happy to announce we have updated the America Off Balance Budget Calculator to reflect the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) recent update to their 10-year budget and economic projections.
 
Party Instability: Why American Politics Feels Broken
by David Brady via PolicyEd
American politics feels broken because existing voting blocs are regrouping and reconsidering which issues motivate them and which political party they support. Ongoing economic and demographic structural changes have led to control of the legislative and executive branches shifting back and forth. While this is not the first time in the history this has occurred, political parties will need to figure out a winning combination of policies that can consistently win them elections in order to stabilize American politics.
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FIXING CONGRESS FAST

4/16/2019

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The Judiciary Can Restore the Power of Congress
by Peter J. Wallison
Just as the courts played a role in weakening Congress over time, they can help force lawmakers to take up their constitutionally assigned tasks. Read More »

Energy in the Legislature  by Philip A. Wallach
Jeff Bergner has written an engaging memoir seasoned with the author’s considered judgments about what is wrong with the U.S. Senate. Read More »
Party Instability: Why American Politics Feels Broken
by David Brady via PolicyEd  American politics feels broken because existing voting blocs are regrouping and reconsidering which issues motivate them and which political party they support. Ongoing economic and demographic structural changes have led to control of the legislative and executive branches shifting back and forth. While this is not the first time in the history this has occurred, political parties will need to figure out a winning combination of policies that can consistently win them elections in order to stabilize American politics.
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WHY WE DON'T HAVE THE LEADERS WE WANT

3/25/2019

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Why we don't have the leaders we want 
Arthur C. Brooks | Washington Examiner 
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HENRY OLSON:  TIME TO DUMP FEDERAL BUDGET PROCESS

3/14/2019

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Time to Dump the Federal Budget Process
Henry Olsen, Washington Post
NYPOST:  WHY PELOSI WON'T DO A BUDGET
New budget, same story
James C. Capretta | RealClearPolicy 
The primary value of most presidential budgets is political, and this one is no different.
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MANAGING CONGRESSIONAL SHUTDOWNS

1/17/2019

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New House budget rules take three steps forward but one big step back
Alan D. Viard | The Hill 
The House recently voted to adopt the new Democratic leadership’s proposed rules for the 116th Congress. Two of the rule changes may slightly improve the long-run budget outlook, and another may help avert debt-limit showdowns. But one change takes a clear step backward.
The congressional budget process: A brief primer
James C. Capretta | AEI Economic Perspectives 
The modern budget process has been amended in several important ways since its establishment in 1974, including the introduction of caps for appropriated spending and a pay-as-you-go rule for taxes and entitlements, both of which are enforced with automatic cuts in spending if they are violated. James 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, the current process does not facilitate executive-legislative agreement on budgetary aggregates, which is an important reason for instability and uncertainty in federal finances.
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17 IDEAS FOR THE BUDGET REFORM COMMITTEE

11/29/2018

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17 Ideas for Congress’ Budget Reform Committee
Brian Riedl, E21

The Congressional budget process is a dysfunctional mess. Lawmakers often juggle a series of continuing resolutions and occasional government shutdowns until finally crafting a single omnibus appropriations bill well into the next fiscal year. That 2,000-page, trillion-dollar bill is then quickly passed before lawmakers can read it and before outsiders can expose the gimmicks. Read more here....
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FIXING THE US DEBT & BUDGET CRISIS

10/16/2018

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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....
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MEDICARE FOR ALL WILL FAIL & REDISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE UNENDING

9/7/2018

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How 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....
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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT

8/22/2018

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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. 

 
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HOW TO REFORM ENTITLEMENTS?  START WITH BUDGET REFORM

5/6/2018

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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
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THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET PROCESS

2/10/2018

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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  
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SEXUAL HARASSMENT & CONGRESS

1/4/2018

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WHY SCORING A BILL IS USELESS

1/3/2018

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​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. 
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WHY IS THE FEDERAL BUDGT A MESS:  A PARLIAMENTARY PROCESS

9/3/2017

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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

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repeal_the_budget_control_act_-_wsj.pdf
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Fixing Congress In 10 Easy Steps

7/17/2017

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via GIPHY

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

6/22/2017

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E21
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The Consequences of Trump's First Budget

5/28/2017

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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
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