WASHINGTON – Wisconsin’s First District Congressman Paul Ryan reintroduced legislation today, together with several House colleagues, that would overhaul the federal government’s budget process to make it easier to rein in excess spending, help enforce budget restraints, and improve the government’s accounting practices. This legislation – the Family Budget Protection Act – is very similar to a measure they introduced last year that encountered opposition from the House Appropriations Committee, which is in charge of all annual spending bills. 

“We must fix our broken budget process and give Congress better tools to enforce the budget and keep spending in check,” Ryan said. “In the current system, there’s a bias toward spending which makes it an uphill climb for lawmakers who fight for fiscal discipline. Our legislation puts teeth in the budget process to help Congress rein in spending and stop pork barrel politics. This is essential if we are to meet key challenges ahead, such as the retirement of the baby boom generation.” 

Among other improvements, this comprehensive budget process reform legislation would do the following: 

• Give the federal budget the force of law, by changing the current non-binding concurrent budget resolution into a joint budget resolution. When signed by the President, this would have the force of law, and both Congress and the White House would have to abide by budget resolution spending levels. 
  

• Finally enable Members of Congress to achieve true savings from amendments that reduce spending, instead of seeing that savings go to increase spending elsewhere. It does this by creating budget protection accounts that allow Members to redirect savings from their amendments toward tax relief or deficit reduction. 
  

• Initiate enhanced rescission authority for the President to propose the elimination of wasteful spending identified in any appropriations bill and send that specific item back to Congress for a vote. Unlike the “line item veto,” with enhanced rescission authority both the House and Senate would have to vote to remove spending on the particular wasteful project in order to eliminate that spending. This would make it easier for pork-barrel and other wasteful spending to be pinpointed and eliminated, without taking away Congress’ power of the purse. 
  

• Simplify the current budget by replacing the 20 budget functions with a one-page budget, establishing spending levels for only five broad spending categories: mandatory spending, non-defense and defense discretionary spending, interest and emergencies.
  

• Abolish the practice of designating spending as “emergencies” to avoid spending safeguards. True non-military emergencies would be budgeted for with a new “rainy day” fund, and all spending from that fund must be for matters defined as sudden, urgent, unforeseen and temporary. Funding for military operations authorized by either a declaration of war or use of military force will also be budgeted for as an emergency. However, it will not be included in the rainy day fund, nor will it face a point of order if in excess of what was originally budgeted. 
  

• Allow for biennial budgeting in the future if the President and Congress agree during their negotiations to extend funding over a two-year fiscal period. This would enable Congress to budget in one year and spend the next year focusing on oversight – determining whether it is spending taxpayers’ money wisely on the programs for which it has budgeted funds. 
  

• Limit growth in entitlement spending to inflation and the growth in population. This would not apply to Social Security or the new Medicare prescription drug benefit until that program is fully phased in.
  

• Set caps on discretionary (non-mandatory) spending that allow it to grow for inflation, with a firewall separating defense, nondefense, and emergency spending.

• Raise the bar for points of order to require a two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House and the Senate to sanction over-budget spending and spending in violation of the caps. 

Click here for a more detailed summary of the legislation.