Two-year budget cycle gains traction

Womack, R-Ark., co-chairs the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform, which was created this year as part of the 2018 bipartisan budget deal.

The bipartisan panel comprises 16 lawmakers from the House and Senate and is co-chaired by Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.

They have until Nov. 30 to produce legislation that would reform the federal spending process.

The panel held a hearing last week and discussed Congress passing two-year budgeting plans instead of the annual budget it intends, but often fails, to pass.

The idea has been considered for many years, pushed by those who say it will free up lawmakers to do critical work in the off years.

They argue it would end annual spending fights by establishing a top-line spending number for two years, rather than leaving the two parties to fight over spending levels annually.

“I’ve not had anybody push back significantly,” Womack, who is also chairman of the House Budget Committee, said of the biennial budget proposal.

The group also weighed the idea of passing some two-year appropriations measures, which are now passed annually. A move like that would likely draw strong opposition, particularly appropriators, Womack acknowledged.

“When we are talking about appropriations, we are in a totally different environment,” Womack said. “There are mixed opinions on that.”

The House and Senate each aim to pass budget resolutions annually. The resolutions set spending levels but are non-binding and are not signed into law. The two chambers don’t always pass budget resolutions.

This year, for example, Senate and House Budget panels missed the deadline to pass budget resolutions and will instead enter a spending level into the Congressional Record, which green-lights the start of the appropriations process.

Congress is tasked by law with annually passing the dozen appropriations measures that fund the federal government, either in separate bills or in a combined “omnibus” measure.

Appropriators guard that responsibility fiercely and have long opposed a two-year approach.

“Appropriators kind of draw a line in the sand on that,” Womack said. “They say this is their ability to maintain proper oversight.”

But Womack, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, said he can make a counter argument.

“If you do biennial appropriations, those committee chairs in the off year can do better oversight rather than be consumed with writing a bill that takes several months to build and get through both chambers.”

Womack said the panel is considering a hybrid approach.

National security spending bills, including defense and homeland security funding, would be considered and passed annually, while others would convert to biennial legislation.

Lawmakers have become desperate to find a solution to the broken spending process.

Congress has not passed the dozen federal spending bills on time since 1994, and in recent years has dragged the nation through two government shutdowns and the threat of many others due to an inability to agree on appropriations legislation.

Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., a member of the reform panel, was co-sponsor of a plan introduced three years ago by former Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Wis., that would establish a two-year budget cycle.

The idea is gaining traction with the reform panel, Yarmuth said.

“That’s the one proposal I’ve seen so far that seems to have the most resonance among the group,” Yarmuth told the Washington Examiner. “You do the top lines in a budget for two years and then you let appropriators appropriate each year.”

A two-year cycle for some appropriations bills, Yarmuth said, would be harder to sell, “but that is another proposal that will get some serious consideration.”