As Members of Congress meet to hammer out the differences between the House and Senate’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget resolutions, much is on the line for America’s taxpayers. There are three decisions in particular conferees can make to ensure that the budget does not break the bank:
First and foremost: stick to the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) Spending Caps.
While, both the Senate and House budget resolutions claim to balance within ten years and offer critical entitlement reform, the budget is merely a policy document. There’s little likelihood that that the underlying proposals will become law in the current political climate, making any “savings” illusory at best.
For taxpayers, the most important parts of the budget resolution are the top-line spending numbers for the next fiscal year. These numbers will indicate whether or not legislators are serious about protecting the BCA’s spending caps.
Where other attempts to rein in out-of-control spending have failed, the bipartisan BCA has succeeded in shrinking the deficit over the past four years and is expected to continue to do so, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Under the BCA, taxpayers were promised $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction by 2021, later stretched out to 2023 by the Ryan-Murray agreement. It’s essential that those scheduled reductions are kept firmly in place and not weakened further. As CBO warns, the growing national debt reduces our “nation’s output and income.”
Critics of the BCA spending caps often try to scare the public by raising the specter of “draconian” cuts and an across-the-board “sequester” that will ravage popular programs. The reality is much less dramatic – in Fiscal Year 2016 spending under the BCA will actually rise, by two percent!
Congress has plenty of flexibility to avoid any “sequester” cuts by prioritizing spending, eliminating unnecessary programs and reducing waste. Budget conferees, and later, appropriators, need to stand firm against pressure to once again “bust the caps.” This is a promise Washington can – and should – be able to keep.The second step toward a responsible budget is rejecting Senator Tim Kaine’s amendment, which could open the door to tax hikes and finance a huge run-up in spending.
Added to the Senate budget resolution by a 50-48 vote at 3:02 am, right before final passage, it would “provide for sequestration replacement” by creating a “Deficit-Neutral Reserve Fund.” In plain English,this type of fund allows for tax hikes to replace the BCA’s spending cuts.
There’s no way we can tax ourselves out of the budget morass we find ourselves in, and imposing more costs on productive areas of the economy would compound the problem.
Taxpayers must remain vigilant to thwart the bipartisan appetite for both more spending and tax increases.
Finally, the House should retain the Senate Budget Point of Order against increased Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) spending.
Both the House and Senate budgets would spend an additional $38 billion in OCO loot on top of the Pentagon’s original request of $58 billion. This scheme would only affirm that OCO (on its own the second-largest discretionary budget right behind DoD) is little more than an accounting gimmick to circumvent budget caps and avoid tackling waste at the Pentagon. Taxpayers should not fund an “off-budget” slush fund and indefensible new spending.
Looking ahead, the once looming entitlements crisis is nearly here – the Social Security Disability Trust Fund is on track to go bankrupt as early as next year. Years of kicking the can have left us with only tough choices ahead and time has run out on any easy fixes.
That is why taxpayers are so concerned Congress is finding it so hard to stay within the modest spending caps that provide deficit reductions we urgently need, today.
Former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen said in 2011, “The single, biggest threat to our national security is our debt.”
It’s time for Congress to take those words to heart. The budget resolution is a critical test of political will and the ability to govern. Will Congress listen to taxpayers or continue to spend recklessly?