Budget Resolution Must Have Real Savings Instructions for the Senate

As the House and Senate work toward agreement on a concurrent budget resolution, reports indicate a potential compromise in which lawmakers combine the House-passed reconciliation instructions with a more flexible – and less binding – set of Senate instructions. The House budget resolution would allow for up to $2.8 trillion in additional borrowing, including $4.8 trillion of deficit-increasing reconciliation instructions partially offset by $1.5 trillion in specified deficit reduction instructions and an additional $500 billion in required savings.  

Reports suggest the Senate might push significantly smaller deficit reduction instructions, which they claim will provide them more flexibility in enacting savings. Once a concurrent budget resolution is adopted, however, the House instructions can be overridden with a simple majority, while Senate instructions require 60 votes to bypass – meaning Senate instructions are effectively binding while House instructions are not. In practice, this could open the door to even more borrowing in the final reconciliation bill.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: 

$2.8 trillion is already far too much to add to the debt at a time when interest costs are exploding and debt is approaching record levels. The House should not allow the Senate to further water down their instructions by removing most of the $2 trillion in required savings.

Some flexibility can make sense, but only in the context of a plan that reduces the debt – or at a minimum, places a hard cap on new borrowing. The House resolution includes committee-level savings instructions and an overall floor on deficit reduction. The final budget resolution should apply the same level of rigor to the Senate instructions.

It’s the Senate reconciliation instructions that are binding, and it’s the Senate’s job to make sure reconciliation is done in a responsible manner.

Enough with the gimmicks and obfuscation. The country is drowning in debt, and it’s time our leaders start treating this crisis with the seriousness it demands. 

###

For more information, please contact Matt Klucher, Assistant Director for Media Relations, at klucher@crfb.org.