Joe Pitts, May 14, 2010

Most Americans know April 15 as Tax Day, the due date for federal returns. While this day is significant to federal revenue, it’s also significant to federal spending because the House and Senate are supposed to agree to a budget by this date.

Unfortunately, like many Congressional deadlines, this one came and went without a budget resolution. The House Budget Committee, chaired by Rep. John Spratt (D-SC), has yet to announce a plan or hold a hearing to consider a budget. If you visit the committee website, budget.house.gov, and click on the Congressional Budget link you come to a page with a banner reading "Congress’s FY 2011 Budget" but no link to an actual budget -- the page is mostly empty. It seems that at least the web designers at the committee have done their job.

Does not having a budget mean that the federal government won’t be funded? No, without a budget, the individual committees can still pass legislation that authorizes or appropriates funds. You don’t need a family budget to spend money, but you do need one if you want to spend responsibly.

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees do the detailed work of funding the federal government from year to year, but the Budget Committees look at the big picture and help unify the House and Senate before the appropriations process begins.

When I first came to Congress, I served on the House Budget Committee. Working on the committee, I served on the negotiating team that worked with the Clinton White House to pass four straight balanced budgets. I know the process can be difficult, but I believe it is critical to constructing a responsible federal spending plan each year.

Without a unified budget, the House and Senate will not have their priorities in line. The Congressional Budget directs the Appropriations Committees to limit their spending. Now is no time to give a green light to these committees to ring up more debt.

Also, a Congressional Budget allows for "reconciliation" instructions to reduce spending. This process directs the various Congressional committees to find savings and report a plan to reduce federal spending. In the past decade, reconciliation bills have been used to cut billions of dollars in wasteful spending. Without a budget, however, there can be no money-saving reconciliation process.

Finally, the Congressional Budget establishes spending levels for entitlement programs. Entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are on extremely shaky ground. As you may be aware, these programs are quickly going bankrupt. The longer we wait, the more difficult they will be to secure.

If the budget process is so useful, then why is Congress failing to pass a budget for fiscal year 2011? Democrats are firmly in control of both Houses of Congress. In the House, Democrats currently outnumber Republicans 253 to 178. Procedurally, there is nothing the minority party can do to stop the majority from passing a budget.

There hasn’t been any official report about what is holding up the process, but information leaked to the press indicates that moderate Democrats want to reduce federal spending in some departments by as much as 2 percent. Government spending grew by over 10 percent last year. Considering our current fiscal situation, it’s seems appropriate to ask federal government departments to be more frugal.

Unfortunately, liberal Democrats won’t even accept a modest reduction. Even though Democratic leadership could pass a budget with nearly 40 of their Members in opposition, they cannot muster the votes.

Since passage of the 1974 Budget Act, the House has never failed to pass a budget. While there have been a handful of times when the House and Senate have not agreed on a unified budget, they have always taken individual action to set priorities.

In the coming weeks, the Republican Study Committee will release a balanced budget that controls spending and encourages economic growth. While there is little chance that Speaker Nancy Pelosi will allow our proposal to be considered by the House, we believe that the American people deserve to see a responsible alternative.

This is no time for failure. While the current leadership in the House seems to be giving up, I’m working with my conservative colleagues to construct a budget that will place our country on a solid fiscal footing.

Congressman Joe Pitts, a Republican, represents Pennsylvania's 16th Congressional District, which includes Lancaster County and parts of Chester County and Berks County.