Im going to encourage everybody to sit down, grab their seats. Keep eating. Okay. Welcome, everybody. Im maya mcginnis, i run the committee for a responsible federal budget and it is not every day that you see an overflow crowd for a whole event on budget process, so were really excited to have you here. We have a cspan audience, were Live Streaming this, so wonderful to have everybody joining us for what i think is going to be an excellent conference. Im really excited about the people weve gathered here and the ideas we are going to be discussing. So welcome. The committee for responsible federal budget for those of you who do not know is a nonpartisan organization, the board of directors are people who many of whom are here with us today who have run all the big budget institutions in washington, so the federal reserve, the treasury department, omb, cbo, the Budget Committees. So they are the whose who of the budgeting world. One of the things that we like to do is work with folks on the hill as well as around the country in budget experts, but to try to realistic understand what kind of budget improvements are going to be needed to improve the fiscal situation in the country and to try to have in a bipartisan way and a kind of understanding how hard it is to make hard choices but there are so many reasons that they are necessary way, keep moving the ball forward. That said, i will say it is a rough time for budget policy in this country. Nobody should be under the impression that the Fiscal Health of the country is good. It is not. Our debt relative to the economy is twice what its been on average. We are on track to borrow it used to be 10 trillion over the next ten years in light of new legislation its trillions and trillions more and i would argue that we are at a point and a discouraging point because the economy is strong right now, but a point where we are not making hard choices, we are not paying for things, we are not acknowledging budget tear tradeoffs and the result of it is that our deficit in all likelihood is going to hit a trillion dollars next year. Weve only had that happen once gfr when we were really in a very dangerous recession, but this is during a time of prosperity and that if things stay on track the way they are right now it could be up to 2 trillion ten years from now. So suffice to say that the fiscal outcomes are very worrying. Its not just the fiscal situation of course, it is how we budget in this country that is so problematic. And i just think all you have to think about is the fact that some of the more common words in budget process these days are Government Shutdown and default. That is not how a great nation or a great economy runs itself. That is not how the process is supposed to work. And so luckily we are going to be one of the things we do try to do because when the debt is this bad and the partisanship is this bad there is a lot of things to be discouraged about, but one of the things we try to do at the committee for responsible federal budget is always focus on different solutions. So what im really glad is that there has been so much work in the space of budget process that has been trying to come up with real answers to improve it. So i for years have been working with my colleague Stewart Butler and paul posener was working on us on how to come with a bunch of ideas. Stewart runs a round table on budget process. The first panel we will hear today is a remarkable groups called convergence which brings together stakeholders from all different areas. The kind of people who in this city would be tossing the food across the table at each other and fighting all out and they on many topics and the newest one was budget process bring together people and Work Together for months and months to build trust, come up with shared values and principles which i think is such an important part, a starting point of understanding that there is a lot more that we have in common, theres more that unites us than divides us, even in budget process and then come up with solutions. So today were going to be hearing from convergence about a long list of possible solutions to help address this budget process situation and there are more that we will be hearing from on the second panel where a lot of my colleagues will come up with ideas, share with the group as well. So it doesnt do enough to complain, it doesnt do enough to identify why the problems matter so much, but really coming up with solutions is critical. Let me just take a couple minutes to talk about budget process and where we are and one of the things that i always find most remarkable is that we run this country without a budget. Really regularly. No business, no business would ever be permitted to operate that way. And we truly are in a situation where its normal now that we dont have a budget in place. So that should be the starting point that everybody recognizes that the budget process of the United States is broken. There are so many things that are problematic about it, not just that we budget really jumping from one crisis to the next, but theres very little transparency in the budget. One of the things weve seen in other countries that when they improve their fiscal situation a lot of it comes from the entire citizenship kind of understanding what the goal is, what the policy goals are, what the if i say ral goals are, what youre trying to accomplish and rally behind that. We have so little transparency that people dont actually know which budget means what. The president puts out a budget and, wait, thats dead on arrival and the house is doing a budget and the senate is doing one but somehow nothing ever passes and were shutting the government done. Theres no transparency that people can understand whats going on with the budget let alone the complicated things likes budget baselines and how we do accounting. We need there be to much more transparency. We need there to be much more accountability that when we fail to pass budgets there is an actual understanding of where that responsibility lies and theres more incentives to actually succeed at a lot of the goals, both the deadlines, passing budgets, getting our funding done and also having better outcomes. There are so many gimmicks in how we budget it would make your head spin. We just published a paper outside available for anyone to pick up today or its at the committee for responsible medical budgets website excellent work, zach. We had a great team that uncovered covered all the different budget gimmicks and put it together. The problem is im very worried this will be used for ill. I do not want any Congressional Staff to bring it back to their member. This is not a how to manual. So were trusting you that these are the gimmicks that we dont want to see used in the budget process, not sneaky ideas that can get incorporated. But it is true, theres so many work ards, so many end runs in the budget process trying to avoid what were supposed to be accomplishing and that just shows the process has broken down at this point. And its true all the time whenever you put rules in place the next the the subsequent years are really smart people figuring out how to break them. But weve got to the point where theyre very broken. So too many gimmicks. Our budget does not focus on the long term at all. The long term is really where the problems are fiscally. It used to be the long term. Enough time has passed that its the medium term and getting closer every day as the baby boomers are retiring and we continue not to have a growth plan or fiscal plan in this country. We dont budget in a longterm thoughtful manner. This is true with policy something as well, whether it was obamacare or now its tax cuts. You put in place a big policy and within minutes the next plan is how to repeal it. So theres no continuity. Theres no real durability to the policies or the budget situation. That doesnt work. Were too slow moving but thats also not what you want. You want longterm objectives and ways to pursue them. Finally i would say the outcomes. The budget leads us to very poor outcomes and thats where we are on the fiscal front. So you want to figure out how you can change the rules and the processes to potentially nudge people to come out with better outcomes. That would be a better that would be desirable in all of this. So its completely luck that id love to call it that we were thoughtful and planned this well, but its completely luck that were doing our first annual budget process event. Yes, for those of you who come to our annual dinner, you know that im not good with things that are annual. We host an annual dinner that occurs approximately every seven years. This is a real annual budget process event which were going to start doing regularly. So this timing turned out to be great. The recommendations that have come out have turned out to be perfect because we know with the new commission thats Getting Started that came out of the budget bill that just passed, its probably one of the only things thats really going to be moving in congress this year. Its not going to be a big year for getting things done. But this may be one of those things that sneaks up on you. As people learn more about the budget process, as the members who are on it and stakeholders think about it, theyll realize how broken it is, there may be ideas that come forward and there may be something that gets moving. We think that this commission is an incredible opportunity. There are a bunch of different ways to think about the kinds of reforms they may look at. They may just be incremental. They may just be how do you and i shouldnt say just, because incremental reforms can be impressive. How do you put forth automatic continuing resolutions looking at how you bring the white house and congress into the policymaking decision. There may be steps there changed. There may be a lot of improvements that are made on how we do the accounting, how we do the budget concepts, how we make things more transparent and enforce things that are harder to get around. That would be an incredible step forward. Or finally we may look at a really big dramatic budget overhaul. Its something that our organization has looked at for years. Are there ways that we can take what we did in 1974 and replace it with a big, new big, new Budget System where you start possibly with agreeing on the outcomes, you get more people involved in the beginning, you put multiyear budgets in place that are more durable. There are a whole lot of ideas. So well see how much the system can bear. But in a time where its hard to be optimistic that anything really difficult is going to get done, i think the benefit of changing how we budget in this country is that those steps dont seem so hard when youre making them, but they can gradually kind of with a Ripple Effect lead to muchimproved outcomes. So i will conclude before our first panel comes up and just say the truth is budget process is absolutely no replacement for real decisionmaking. That this is a moment in this country that desperately needs real leadership on hard choices and kind of setting us on the path of how were going to figure out how our revenues and how our spending can both align into better ways so theyre not borrowing a trillion dollars or more every year but also so our resources are being spent in a thoughtful way thats achieving the national goals. Its not just the programs that weve put into place over the past decades that matter, we have huge, huge challenges that could be opportunities in this country that come from trade and open borders and globalization, that come from technology and Artificial Intelligence and all the things that are happening of the the pace of change that is affecting our economy faster than weve ever seen in the world. Those things can be great opportunities, but in order to make them work, were going to have to have a government that can partner with the private sector to turn those into opportunities so they arent disruptive to the economy and our Overall Economic system in a way thats too hard to handle. So just to bite off an even bigger piece than just reempforg the budget process system, the stuff we budget really affects how were going to perform as an economy for decades to come. So these rules will not replace policy makers and leaders making real choices and setting us on the right path, but they can be a nudge if people want to see those changes. We can tell you from working with members on the hill, there are a lot of people who do want to see improvements and want to see a system that allows those to flow through. Im now going to turn it over to the first panel. Well introduce everybody from convergence and the great world cup of this panel. The process, was it not only hard working on all the policy pieces, it also did something we need to be doing in the city much, much more, which is build trust between a whole lot of stakeholders who come with a whole lot of different opinions. And it wasnt hard to do. You can trust people. There are a lot of shared values so im really excited to be introducing them to come up on the stage and talk about both the process and the outcome of this Convergence Panel and thanks to everybody for joining us. [ applause ] well, thank you, maya, and welcome, everybody. Were delighted youre all here today. I am rob fursh, president of convergence. Its a National Organization that works on solutions of issues of national consequence. I do want to say that she hit the high points. What we have been successful in doing is gathering people of different perspectives on multiple issues in order to find Common Ground. People who have collective knowledge and influence that if they Reach Agreement can move the dial forward. So in addition to this remarkable project led by susan willie, and she will introduce the panelists, we also work in other areas, k12 education, health care, economic mobility and incarceration. We are really pleased to have hosted and hosted, organizing, and convened this process on this Critical National issue. I want to start by thanking the Madison Initiative of the Hewlett Foundation for their supportive advice. Daniel stid, and its been invaluable to moving this process forward. Also the Stewart Family foundation for helping us reach conclusion on this project. You will hear that this group, this remarkably Diverse Group, and ive been quoted as saying never before has such a Diverse Group agreed on anything, but they have come together on a series of proposals to help the federal budget process and vastly improve how to create budgets every year as maya has explained. What makes this group unique is not just its political diversity but also the fact these are not just the normal budget wonks, but people who represent real interests who are affected by the dysfunction in the budget process. While they dont agree much on the merits of what a budget ought to look like, they are all in agreement that the budget process needs to be fixed and thats where they have come together power fully to present ideas in a very timely way. The other thing i think that makes this report uniquely valuable is that we had to work really hard. It wasnt maya said it wasnt so easy to build trust. Actually, that did come along pretty well, but there were real differences and real concerns amongst various stakeholders about whether we would create budget process reforms that might tilt one way or another to those who were concerned about the levels of spending or those who dont feel were putting enough money into certain needs or some concerned about too much revenues, too little revenues, whatever their perspective. It was really hard to make sure we created a process that would stay fair to all points of view and i think weve done that very successfully. And has been mentioned already, we think this report provides a great starting point for the new joint select committee on the budget and appropriations concept that congress is setting up. I think its important to know that none of the people in our group think that we put out a report thats just going to be adopted and hold cloth by the congress. Its a starting point. But we think if the ideas presented here and the principles that underlie them are honored, then well have a good chance of having a budget process reform that can achieve widespread bipartisan support. So again, i think the group does view this as a starting point. Its not the final answer. I think the other thing that should be obvious is no matter what mousetrap we all create, congress may have the ability to void it, so its going to take some cooperation from congress in terms of changing its norms and how it operates in order for this to be successful, but we think this could become a beach head for bipartisan across the party lines in congress itself. On a personal note, i just realized last week that 40 years ago last month, i took my first job on capitol hill. It was as Senior Analyst of income security for the Senate Budget committee. I worked for chairman muskie and he worked about ranking minority member bellman. For me it was an amazing time where the process had just begun, but there was such earnestness on both sides to Work Together and there was such tremendous participation, bipartisan, on that committee. And i know a lot of people get impatient with those of us who are a little older about calling up the days of the past. But i think the fact that these people could Work Together on a budget process successfully then. And back then you had dole and luger, on the d side you had warren magnuson, joe biden, pat moynihan, they all worked together really well. What we want to do is create Budget Committees that function at the level they did many years ago. So i think underlying what were presenting today is the fact that people really can work across differences and we hope this will be a model for others. Let me close by thanking all the participants, susan will recognize you later, but we have a lot of the participants who are at our table here with us today. I want to thank in particular our panelists for their appearance today and i want to recognize especially susan willie, our leader, our project director, aided by