John Spratt: “This clearly is a shift of leverage from the House and the Senate, the Congress, to the Presidency. The President would…”

“This clearly is a shift of leverage from the House and the Senate, the Congress, to the Presidency. The President would emerge from this kind of deal with much, much greater authority in dictating what the budget is going to be. My concern is, contrary to the belief that it might streamline the process by elevating the status of the budget resolution, I think it would probably prolong the process, protract the process. As a result, we would find ourselves with less time to do appropriation bills because it would take a much longer time to get the budget resolution done, because not only would we have to agree among ourselves, from party to party, we would have to agree with the White House. There is some advantage to that, trying to bring us together; but I think there is a lot of disadvantage, and there is a lot of room for chicanery.”