David Obey: “Mr. Chairman, absolutely the budget process is broken. The problem is that what is being proposed today will make it…”

“Mr. Chairman, absolutely the budget process is broken. The problem is that what is being proposed today will make it even worse. The major argument that is being used for adopting this proposal is that too much time is spent in the budget and appropriations process and we have to find a way to shorten it. By making the budget a joint resolution which requires a signature by the President rather than a concurrent resolution which does not, you double the length of time that it will take for us to finish our job, because it requires Congress to reach agreement with the President not once but twice during each budget cycle, once on the budget resolution and the second time on each and every appropriation bill that will work their way through here. That is a prescription for having us never finish our budget business. Secondly, we also have the problem of 2-year budgeting, which apparently is going to be attached to this proposal. The problem that I see when you move to 2-year budgeting is that we wind up living in a permanent racetrack of supplementals. We have too many supplemental appropriations now when we set the budget for a year in advance. If you set the budget for 2 years in advance, the world is not static, wars happen, disasters happen, economic disruption happens, and that means we will be required to push through more and more supplementals.”