William Luther: “before coming to Congress 5 years ago, I served in the Minnesota legislature for 20 years working on 2-year budgets.…”

“before coming to Congress 5 years ago, I served in the Minnesota legislature for 20 years working on 2-year budgets. From that experience, there is no question in my mind that a 2-year budget is a better process. It would also, as has been pointed out, allow time for other important nonbudget issues. I think we all know the number of issues that are not going to be dealt with this year because we are, again, working on budget issues. Proponents of biennial budgets have already stated the arguments that I agree with in terms of fiscal management, oversight, and cost effectiveness. But I also believe biennial budgets will add to long-term planning and it will allow us an easier time of making the budget cuts necessary to meet today's and tomorrow's needs. What is happening today is that we argue the same issues year after year but still have a very difficult time meeting the future needs of our Nation because we are unwilling oftentimes to cut the kinds of things we thought were important years ago. The biennial budget process, I believe, would make it easier to make those difficult decisions. Due to the initial closing costs associated with shutting down many programs, it is hard to see a lot of savings when we are looking at just 1 year. But if we look out 2 years, we can see the substantial savings. And that is the experience that I had when I worked on 2-year budgets in the Minnesota legislature.”