David Price: “recent calls for biennial budgeting have claimed that the budget process around here is broken and needs fixing. Well, I…”

“recent calls for biennial budgeting have claimed that the budget process around here is broken and needs fixing. Well, I would like to suggest that the problem is less one of process, and more one of a failure on the part of the majority to produce realistic budget resolutions. What we need is not endless tinkering with the budget process. What we need is to use the existing process responsibly. The Republican budget resolution before us today repeats patterns that are all too familiar to us from fiscal 1999 and fiscal 2000. It makes highly unrealistic domestic spending assumptions, like those that led to last year's budgetary train wreck. It relies on false assumptions about the level of cuts which can be absorbed by critical domestic accounts. The only way the Republican plan can make room for its exorbitant $200 billion in tax cuts over 5 years--and that goes up to $1 trillion over 10 years--is to drastically undercut domestic programs that are critical for working families and for the most vulnerable among us. In 2001 the Republican plan would cut non-defense domestic spending by $7 billion, compared to a freeze at the 2000 level. When you account for inflation, this represents $19.7 billion, or a 6.4 percent cut in purchasing power, from our current level of activity. By 2005, the Republican plan would cut non-defense domestic spending by $39.4 billion or 11.5 percent relative to the funding necessary to keep pace with inflation.”