1. Biennial Budgeting.

Recommendation: A biennial budget process should be established that contains biennial Presidential budget submissions, 2-year concurrent budget resolutions, multiyear authorizations, and 2-year appropriations.

It is recommended that biennial budgeting become effective with the fiscal biennium beginning October 1, 1995. Specifically, there should be biennial Presidential budget submissions, a biennial concurrent resolution on the budget, biennial appropriations acts, and program reauthorizations for periods generally not less than two years. Both the House and Senate sides of the Joint Committee endorse a biennial budget process.

Beginning with the 104th Congress, there are to be revisions in the timetable for the congressional budget process. Under the revised timetable, the biennial budget resolution would be enacted during the first session as would appropriations measures, while authorizing legislation would be considered during the second session.

The move to biennial budgeting will reduce the number of redundant budget-related votes during each Congress, encourage longer time horizons in policy planning, and encourage greater stability in fiscal policy. This change also encourages the Budget Committee to use the off-year session for long-term studies and to hold hearings and receive testimony from committees of jurisdiction regarding problem areas and the results of their oversight activities. The Budget Committee should issue to the Speaker by January 1 of each odd-numbered year a report identifying the key issues facing the Congress for the next biennium.

Biennial appropriations are a key component of the biennial budgeting reform. The annual appropriations process is cumbersome and time consuming. Annual appropriations bills are considered under major time constraints in the hope of completing action by the start of the fiscal year. Short- and long-term continuing appropriations have become commonplace, to the detriment of Congress and the executive branch alike. For agencies, the annual appropriations process requires a neverending round of hearings, markup sessions, conference reports, and planning for the next year's round of hearings. Moving to a biennial cycle would free up more time for program oversight and review, and allow members of the Appropriations Subcommittees to engage in formal oversight, an activity difficult to pursue given the annual appropriations cycle.

Twenty years ago, House and Senate committees began to move to ever shorter authorization cycles in an effort to gain greater control over policymaking. However laudable the goal, the expanded committee workload proved unmanageable and frequently appropriations bills were considered in the absence of House (or congressional) action on the necessary underlying reauthorization. Now, many committees are turning again to longer program authorization cycles. The Joint Committee endorses this trend and recommends stronger enforcement of longer reauthorizations through the establishment of a point of order against considering any bill, joint resolution, amendment, or conference report that authorizes appropriations for a period less than two fiscal years. An exception would be made in cases of a program, project, or activity which is to terminate in less than two years. A required 2-year cycle will give committees time in off-years for more thorough review under an oversight schedule and plan stipulated elsewhere in this package.

2. CBO Quarterly Budget Reports.

Recommendation: The Congressional Budget Office should be directed to file quarterly reports comparing revenues, expenditures, and the deficit for the current fiscal year with the assumptions used in the concurrent budget resolution.

The Congressional Budget Office is required to file quarterly budget reports with the House and Senate Budget Committees. These reports are to compare revenues, spending, and the deficit for the current fiscal year with the assumptions used in the congressional budget resolution. CBO also will be required to make the reports available to other interested parties upon request. These reports will enable the Congress to compare actual budget results to earlier estimates.

The frequent periodic reports by CBO on the progress of fiscal policy and economic developments since action on the budget resolution will inform the Congress about progress in deficit control, using updated projections and actual budget figures to date. The reports can also serve to encourage additional reconciliation attempts (between biennial budget resolutions) as a means of controlling the deficit.

3. GNP Budget Analysis and Fiscal and Budget Policy Reports.

Recommendation: The Economic Report of the President should include a GNP budget analysis, describing broad policy objectives for the economy and demonstrating the impact of Federal fiscal policy on the Gross National Product.

The economic report of the President should include a GNP budget analysis, which describes broad policy objectives for the economy and which presents a GNP budget showing how current national output (by major category) will be affected by the President's pursuit of these objectives. The President also would be required to submit separate fiscal and budget policy reports which are to lay out the President's long-term fiscal policy goals, 10-year budget projections, relevant comparisons between U.S. fiscal policies and those of our international competitors, and performance indicators that can be used by the Congress to assess the effectiveness of Federal programs. This recommendation also adds to the report and study duties of the Joint Economic Committee.

Budget policy reports are directed to identifying long-term trends in government spending, and the effect of government policy shifts in spending patterns among the major categories of national output. The fiscal policy reports will provide Congress with advance estimates of shifts in revenues and outlays, comparisons of such data to policies in other countries, and indicators of Federal program effectiveness.

4. Government-Wide Review of User Fees.

Recommendation: The Congressional Budget Office should be required to conduct a study of all Federal user fees and the effects of inflation on any user fees since such fees were last adjusted.

This proposal mandates that the Director of the Congressional Budget Office should undertake a comprehensive review of Federal Government user fees. Such a review is necessary because these fees have been set, in some cases, far in the past and have not been adequately adjusted to reflect modern price levels and costs of services.

The Director is mandated to conduct a review of all such fees and report to the Congress and the President information on such fees, including the date at which the current fee was most recently established and any alteration in such fees required to adjust their levels as a result of intervening changes in the consumer price index or other relevant indicator of the cost of goods and services. The report on user fees is due within 90 days of the enactment of this Act, and a point of order will lie against the consideration of the first concurrent resolution on the budget to be considered after enactment of this Act if such report is not delivered by CBO in a timely fashion.

5. Total Tax Expenditures in Budget Resolutions.

Recommendation: The concurrent budget resolution should include a statement on the total tax expenditures attributable to special provisions in the Federal tax code.

This recommendation adds information on tax expenditures to the concurrent budget resolution. In addition to existing requirements that the budget resolution show total revenues, total expenditures, estimated deficit or surplus, and allocations to the respective functional categories of expenditures, this proposal requires an estimate of revenue forgone as a result of special provisions in the tax code.

This statement should be based on estimated revenue lost to the Federal Government as a result of special exclusions, exemptions, or deductions from gross income in the calculation of tax liability. Also to be included in this required estimate are revenues lost through the granting of a special tax credit, a preferential rate of tax, or a deferral of tax liability. The data to be included in the budget resolution shall estimate the amount of lost revenue based on current law, and the aggregate amount by which such total shall be increased or decreased in the upcoming fiscal period.

This recommendation will provide more information to the Congress in an effort to subject tax expenditures to the same scrutiny as other expenditures in the budget. Currently, tax expenditures are not highlighted, even though they result in benefits to particular individuals (in the form of taxes that are not required to be paid) from special tax credits or other tax preferences.