Cord Byrd: “one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever enacted by Congress was the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. In…”

“one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever enacted by Congress was the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. In my capacity as Majority Whip, as well as Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee's Subcommittee on the Standing Rules of the Senate, I was deeply involved in the preparation of the Senate version of that bill, S. 1541. I assembled a staff working group to make extensive revisions to a bill that had been reported out of the Committee on Government Operations. That staff group consisted of representatives of the chairmen of the ten standing committees of the Senate, four joint committees, the House Appropriations Committee, the Congressional Research Service, and the Office of Senate Legislative Counsel, and the parliamentarian of the Senate--at that time, Robert Dove. On March 19, 1974, we took S. 1541 to the Senate Floor. At that time I stated that, ``when Senators look back some years in the future, many may be able to say that this was among the most important measures acted upon during our entire service in Congress.'' As I pointed out in my remarks on March 19, 1974, ``In the fifty years subsequent to the enactment of the Budget and Accounting Act, Congress had permitted its `power of the purse' under The Constitution to slip away, or diminish.'' That trend, as I further pointed out, had been magnified during the previous five years.”