Here's a good one for you: Using the House legislative calendar as a guide, as of March 10, Congress will have 16 legislative days to enact a budget resolution to meet its April 15 statutory deadline. Sixteen days? Congress can't even name a Post Office after someone in 16 days. Under the Budget Act of 1974 and its later amendments, Congress is required to complete work on the resolution by that date; if the House and Senate fail to meet the deadline, appropriators are allowed to begin work on their annual spending bills on May 15.
This afternoon CBO released its preliminary analysis of the President’s Budget, projecting a significantly worse fiscal situation than the Administration does. It will release a more detailed report later this month that outlines the effect of the President’s Budget on the economy. We will release a more detailed analysis next week and when CBO releases its final report, likely at the end of March. But here's a quick preview:
Those were some of the words uttered by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) today at the Brookings Institution as the latest political leader to warn about the crushing weight that our deficits and ballooning debt would bring to bear on future generations. Hoyer’s bottom line was that if nothing is done soon, in the not so distant future, our entire economy will not provide enough to pay for all the promises that have been made by the federal government.
The United States is not the first nation to face tough fiscal challenges. Other countries have faced similar fiscal challenges – and gotten out of them.
In a new paper ("Fiscal Turnarounds: International Success Stories"), CRFB’s Fiscal Roadmap Project looks at successful fiscal turnarounds around the world and possible lessons for the U.S.
What are the lessons?
Update: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he will make Republican appointments to the deficit commission.
Although our initial analysis of the President's Budget focused on his ten-year budget plan, the Budget itself includes much, much more.
The Senate is likely to turn to a tightly focused jobs bill when it returns from the President's Day break next week. The bill, a much-scaled down version of legislation written by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) and his ranking Republican, Charles Grassley of Iowa, contains provisions that the Congressional Budget Office said earlier this year would indeed help stimulate the economy.
In the budget released last week, the President outlined his vision for additional economic stimulus. Included in his proposal was $76 billion over 11 years (including $29 billion in 2010) to extend existing stimulus measures on the tax side, $90 billion ($45 billion in 2010) to extend spending stimulus measures, and another $100 billion ($24 billion in 2010) to allow for new, yet-to-be-specified stimulus measures.
Once again, a president is trying to get rid of a “small” scholarship program tucked away in the Department of Education. And once again, the attempt is likely to be futile.
In another indication of how broken the budget process is, Republicans and Democrats alike have tried to eliminate this $42 million program, first established in the mid-1980s--only to see it funded year after year. The problem seems to be the program’s name: “The Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program.”
