Feature:Opinion

Congress blows off its budget deadline

Gretchen Hamel Executive Director, Public Notice
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American taxpayers are facing a deadline: by today, April 15, they must file their taxes or risk penalty. Most taxpayers take that responsibility seriously. Millions have spent weekends inside, trying to make sense of the too-complicated forms, instead of enjoying early spring. They’ve used their hard-earned money to hire professionals to prepare their taxes so they’ll be fully compliant with the law.

But do taxpayers know Congress faces a similar deadline? The Congressional Budget Act (CBA) of 1974 specifies Congress must complete its annual budget resolution by, you guessed it, April 15! 

While taxpayers will wait in long lines to make sure their income tax forms are postmarked on time, this Congress seems comfortable blowing off their deadline.

It’s time Congress faced real consequences for not doing the job they were hired to do; creating a budget is one of Congress’s fundamental responsibilities. As any family knows, budgets help control spending. If families have a plan for how to use their money, each member is more accountable. Mom knows if she splurges on steak, she’ll have to cut the grocery budget elsewhere to bring things back into balance.

Policymakers are supposed to operate the same way. There’s a set process for Congress to follow when writing a budget. The president must give Congress a comprehensive budget by the first Monday in February (President Obama met his deadline), but then Congress is supposed to start creating a budget of its own.

The House and Senate Budget Committees are expected to hear testimony from experts, fellow Members, cabinet members, and others in the Executive branch. Other Congressional committees with jurisdiction over budget matters are supposed to offer their input as well. This information allows the Budget committees to craft a “budget resolution,” which is then to be considered by the full House and Senate. The adopted budget resolution becomes the blue print for that year’s budget. For example, any legislation that calls for spending beyond what’s specified in the budget resolution cannot be considered under the normal rules—that’s just one way Congress holds itself accountable. 

Congress can’t consider spending bills without a waiver until May 15. But more important than the specific Congressional rules is that absent a budget resolution, Congress will simply be operating blind, without a list of spending priorities. And, as families know, when no one knows what their allowance is, the tendency is for everyone to spend too much. 

With the deadline looming, this Congress has barely started the budget project. The president turned in his budget on Feb. 1. The House Budget Committee held a hearing on the president’s budget on Feb. 2, and released a report on the president’s budget on Feb. 4. Since then, the Budget Committee has held one hearing for three departments’ budgets: the Treasury, Education and Defense Departments. That last hearing took place on March 5, and since that time the House Budget Committee has been almost exclusively focused on health care reform. Congress is scheduled to return from their two-week recess on April 12, leaving only three days to complete months of budget work.

The Senate Budget Committee is moving at a similarly slow pace. Hearings about the president’s budget took place in early February, and since then they’ve just heard from the Department of Defense and Transportation.



Apparently, this Congress is content to operate without a budget resolution. But the American people shouldn’t let them do so. Taxpayers deserve to know how Congress plans to spend taxpayer money. The public should hold Congress accountable, and Members of Congress should be able to hold each other accountable when they push legislation that breaks the bank.

The decisions Congress makes will have real consequences for taxpayers. This year’s budget will cost taxpayers $3.8 trillion, the highest level of spending since WWII. And that’s just the beginning of the coming explosion of debt. The Congressional Budget Office recently reported the national debt would grow by $9.7 trillion over the next decade if the president’s budget becomes law. That’s $3.8 trillion more than if Washington simply continued with already-planned spending.

Does this Congress embrace the president’s approach? Are the people’s representatives comfortable with this trajectory? The American people will know only if Congress offers a budget of their own. Members almost universally claim to be concerned about mounting deficits. Yet the public needs more than words. The public needs to see Congress commit to reducing spending and bringing the budget into long-term balance, and that begins by actually writing a budget.

Gretchen Hamel is the executive director of Public Notice, a new independent, bipartisan, non-profit organization dedicated to providing facts and insights on the effect public policy has on Americans’ financial well being. For more information please visit www.thepublicnotice.org.