Governors-Turned Sens Want 2-Year Budgeting

by John T. Bennett, Defense News
click here for original article

Two former governors are pushing legislation in the US Senate that would require presidents to submit two-year budget plans to Congress.

Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both former Virginia chief executives, believe the federal government’s practice of crafting budgets each year is “broken.” The duo also say Congress should devote more time to its oversight of the executive branch.

That’s why this week they introduced legislation that would shift the Pentagon and other federal departments away from crafting annual budgets. Instead, the White House would submit two-year budget requests.

Under the Warner-Kaine bill, dubbed the “Biennial Budgeting and Appropriations Act of 2015,” presidents would send lawmakers two-year budget blueprints at the start of each congressional session, which also span two years.

During the first year, Congress would draft a budget resolution and pass appropriations bills. In the second year of the proposed cycle, lawmakers would focus on oversight of executive branch programs.

It is a model Warner and Kaine say works for their commonwealth and other states.

“Twenty states, including Virginia, operate on a two-year budget cycle, so we know it works,” Warner said in a joint statement with Kaine. “Budgeting on a two-year time frame is a commonsense way to provide more oversight of federal spending and a more thoughtful approach to the entire budget process.”

Kaine said it is “clear that Congress’ current budgeting and appropriations process is broken,”

“I believe adopting such a model would dramatically improve our ability to achieve normal budget order,” Kaine said, “giving certainty to families and businesses.”

The Defense Department has tried this before. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld moved the building to two-year budget cycles in 2003.

Not that anyone noticed. Nor aided by the instruction.

Then-Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn killed the process in April 2010 because, he said at the time, “nobody used the second year.”

Under Rumsfeld’s supposed two-year process, major funding and programmatic changes are supposed to be made in even years; smaller adjustments were to be made in odd years.

One big problem: “Everyone involved just ignored that second year,” Lynn said in 2010.

“The building ignored it. Congress ignored it,” he said. “So why keep it?”