Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time and this is entitled approving the budget process, and a look at the Budget Committee on budget process reform. I recognize myself for five minutes for a statement. The 104th congress convened in 1995 was the last to pass all of the Appropriations Bills prior to the start of the fiscal year and that was almost 25 years ago, and most of the house members serving today have never seen a process to work the way it is supposed to where the stand alone bills are passed on time. On the joint committee on budget and appropriations reform, along with myself and bob woodall was tasked with making recommendations to significantly reform the budget and appropriations process. The very act of establishing the committee is acknowledging that the process is not working the way it should. And article 9 section one of the constitution says that no treasury should be withdrawn without the authorization of congress. It is a constitutionally check on the executive power, and when Congress Fails to pass the Appropriations Bills on time, it feeds power for the executive branch. Congress has passed 117 continuing resolutions since the beginning of fiscal year 1998. Last year, Congress Passed five crs and this year, Congress Passed three. That is a lot of time spent dealing with funding decisions, but think of the time that congress would have to focus on other legislative duties if Appropriations Bills were passed on time, and the decision of how to allocate for federal programs is tough work, but it is the congress job, and the people deserve a fully functioning job, and funding the government is congress most important job. While the committee did not pass a bill, it produced important work to provide a framework for reform today. The committee engaged in serious discussions of what it would take to fix the budget in ap 3r0e7iations process and many of the ideas that came out of the discussions are well worth considering and this is our intent today, to talk about the problems with the process and potentially the areas of agreement where both of the parties and the chambers could find some common ground. While we are working on, and while we are foe cushion on the work of the joint select committee, we dont need to limit ourselves to the recommendations that that committee considered, a i am looking forward to hearing the ideas of the witnesses and particularly grateful to the appropriations chair ms. Lowey and the budget chair mr. Womack who tag teamed with that leadership. And with that, i will invite our chair tom graves to provide opening comments. I would like to thank the chair and ms. Lowey for joining us today. And as cochair of the joint select committee, we know that you will see that the committee is proof that your work is living on, and so it is not for nought, and we will continue to work on the work from last year and this committee has that opportunity and and to build on the foundation and so we are glad that you are here to take a part of this today and we all want to solve this and hopefully today we can gather the ideas and the advice of how the tackle the complex issue. When it comes to the complex funding process in congress, we know that we can do better. The American People, our con12i67 weco constituents expect us to do better and we are charged with using taxpayer dollars wisely and effectively and i would like to look forward to the success as we move on, mr. Chairman. Each party and chairman and administration runs into the brick wall of the funding process and each and every time it seem like over the last couple of years and as one of the witnesses today, mr. Owens has illustrated to the joint select Committee Last year to your joint select committee, the quote is that it is 20 years since the Appropriations Bills have been passed prior to the start of the fiscal years, and 27 of the senators have seen the process work and for house members, it has been 16 . We have a lot of the appropriators in the room today, myself and the chairman as well. And so i know that the problem is personal to each of us, as well as to the two at the panel here, and the appropriators as well. It has been tough for all of us to spend hours in the markups and the negotiations, and then see the work chewed up by the process. It is tough to see it discarded by a continuing resolution, and tough to see it going through year after year after year, and we have different backgrounds and philosophies and yet what we have in common is that we are trapped in the broken funding process together, and so i think that todays hearing in a bipartisan spirit where we get to pick up on the efforts that you left us with last year, hopefully, we will have a chance to fix this and get out of the broken cycle that we are in. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and i look forward to the hearing. Thank you. Today we welcome the testimony of five witnesses and on the first panel, we have representative nita lowey the chair of the House Appropriations committee and steve womack who is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. And despite this being a very busy week, they have each generously said they will provide five minutes of testimony, and once they are finished we will move back to the precious time of this panel. With that, you are recognized for five minutes, ms. Lowey. Chairman kilmer and vice chair graves, and members of the select committee, aim pleased to frankly speak to you in a room that is very familiar and familiar faces and to be here alongside Ranking Member womack who served with me as the cochair of the joint select committee on bucket and dget an appropriations process reform in the 114th congress. While certains over the budgetary processes prevented that committee from reporting out recommendations, the House Democrats have used the first nine months of the new majority to make important improvements to the budget and the appropriations budget process. I am pleased to say that one of the most important changes that i advocated in the joint select committee raising unworkable budget cap s was achieved in a bipartisan way in july. Because of speaker pelosis leadership, this bipartisan act allows us to invest for the people and increase funding for education, health care and human services. In addition the bipartisan budget deficit act removed the ceiling and the uncertainty for families, businesses and communities across the country. However, as i recommended in the joint select committee process, i would prefer to go further and completely repeal the debt ceiling. It is no useful purpose other than to provide opportunities and brinksmanship that threatens the nations credit and the health of the economy. In addition to the bipartisan budget act, we have also made important changes to the house rules. When our democratic majority took office in january, we adopted a meaningful pay as you go rule that shuts the doors on the policies such as the gop tax scam. As chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, i have restored the longstanding practice of adopting 302b allocations before reporting appropriation bills and important steps for transparency. To build on these successes and in charting a more effective and responsible course for the American People, there are two key legislative changes that i proposed making when i led the joint select committee that would help to improve the budget and the appropriations budget process. Mooing from the moving from annual to biennial resolutions, and to provide a mechanism to facilitate actions on a item even if the budget resolution is not adopted ideally allowing for a concurrent resolution dealing with 302a allocations only. Although, these are outside of the scope of this select committee, it is worth noting that i also favor two changes to senate rules that would bolster fiscal responsibility in both chambers. Restoring the conrad rule, the senate rule that prevented reconciliation legislation from increasing the deficit, and the first ten years, and adding a new 60vote point of order in the senate against reconciliation instructions in a budget resolution that called for a net deficit increase. In addition, i support technical improvements to better handle the cap adjustment items and change the bases for calculations of the emergency spending and expedite the administrations provision of a full year budgetary data to the cbo. However, even with these changes, the most important element to a successful budget and appropriations process is political will. I am proud that our democratic majority has shown that political will and taken our responsibilities seriously. That is why our chamber is far ahead of the senate in processing appropriation bills this year. Finally, id like to discuss the elephant in the room, the congressionally directed spending. This select committee on the modernization of congress was tasked with strengthening the institution, and nothing could strengthen the Article One Branch of government more than restoring the congressionally directed spending. It is imperative that congress exercise the constitutional responsibility in determining how and where taxpayer dollars that we appropriate are spent. The end of congressionally directed spending has led to diminished comity in the house, and tran fered power for the executive branch and return to earmarking under a strong set of rules to ensure transparency and prevent abuse would be of immeasurable benefit to the house and to the American People. I hope that we can do so in the months ahead. Thank you for inviting me to testify and best of luck with the select committee. Thank you, madam chair, and thank you for your leadership. Chairman womack, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, chairman and members of the select committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today. I would like to share some perspectives of the committee of the budget and processes Reform Task Force that i was proud to chair. I look forward to a productive discussion. Many members of the house have voiced frustrations about the broken budget process. Our current process was written in the 1970s. It has been updated with minor revisions on a few occasion, and it does not align with the dynamics of the modern congress, however. Last year the joint select committee was tasked with producing legislation to reform the budget process with an equal number of republicans and democrats and a super majority voting threshold. That super majority was five republicans and five democrats and 10 of the 16 members but a requirement of five members from each party and this structure guaranteed a consensusdriven product. We ultimately produced a bipartisan and bicameral process, and some were moving to biennial budget, and maintaining appropriations, and assuming realistic deadlines for the congress to complete the budgets and appropriations work, and requiring the Budget Hearing on the fiscal state of the nation. Why did we fail . We obtained the bipartisan and bicameral support for a number of proposals, but the final vote did not reach the required super majority threshold. Some members voted no, and some voted present. A number of those members indicated support for the underlying bill, but voted present due to unrelated disagreement among the senate leadership. However, the final proposal was developed with the input from all of the members and the cochair agreed to the text and it was marked up in the super majority vote, and some in the unanimous vote, and ideas were found, and those proposals should be explored by future reformers. Besides examining the budget and the appropriation process i was also pleasantly surprised that the republicans and the democrats in house and the senate came into the deliberations to talk about the debt. To be clear, our group did not try to identify policies to reduce the deficit by a certain amount, but what we did discuss extensively is the fact that congress does not use the existing procedures to reduce the debt. We could use regular order or reconciliation, but we simply dont. Members expressed interest in the third route and perhaps one that is bipartisan and bicameral with a debt to gdp as a target metric and leader sheld shelden was the first. And for this, i would encourage you if get some first downs rather than throw the hail mary. The select work product represents a bicameral and bipartisan step forward for incremental reform. Second, we should continue to focus on the budget process and not budget outcomes. Outcomes are specific levels of funding or the proposals to reduce the deficit by a certain amount, and process is how congress determines how much to spend or how to determine what policies to enact to reduce the deficit. Id like to see us modernize the procedures which is going to hopefully set up congress for success in the future, regardless of who happens to have the majority at any given time. My goal so get something enacted into law that improves the process. I am willing to work with both republicans and democrats in the house and the senate to try to do so. Finally, it is important to acknowledge the importance of the senate in this puzzle and for that, i recognize this chairs release of the reform ideas earlier in the summer. Before i conclude, let me just anecdotally say this, there is no better poster child or the challenge confronting the congress of the United States of america than where we happen to be today on funding the government in the beginning of the fiscal year that is less than two weeks away. I challenge this committee and all willing participants in the congress to find solutions that can put congress back on the track of doing arguably the most important work. I yield back. Thank you. I wanted to just again express my gratitude to both of you. You are two of the most busiest people in the marble buildings and the fact that you were willing to give us your time and wisdom, i am grateful for. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, we will now move on to the second panel. Our first witness is matthew owen, and mr. Owens is the executive Vice President , and the Vice President for federal relations at the American Association of universities. He provides strategic management, and also serves on the council of convergent, which is to build trusts and form alliances for action on Critical National issues, and in this capacity he served on the building a better budget process to address the dysfunctional budget process, and the project participants reached consensus on five proposals to improve the process that congress uses to manage the 4 trillion annual budget. William hogland is a senior at the policy center and in this chasti capacity he helps to provide policy and analysis. He has also had 25 years on the u. S. Senate staff, and from 2003 to 2007 he served as the director of budget appropriations in the office of the Senate Majority leader bill frisk. And he has assisted in major legislation and coordinated the budget policy for the leadership n. 1982 to 2003, mr. Hogland served as a staff member and director of the senate Budget Committee including reporting to u. S. Senator pete doe minchey. And he also participated in federal budget meetings, including the Graham Rudman budget act and also the restore budget agreement. And finally, megan lynch is a director of the congressional budget process, and she joined crs in 2007 as the president ial management fellow and prior to coming to crs worked for local government in maryland and the maryland general assembly, and the witnesses are reminded that the oral testimony is limited to five minutes and your written statements will be made part of the record. Mr. Owens you are recognized for five minutes to give a oral presentation of the testimony. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this important panel. I am encouraged that the work to modernize congress is including ways to fix the broken federal budget process. I have seen the consequences of the budget failures over the past few decades and Student Financial aid decisions are held up, and important medical research is delayed and longterm plank is held up, because the congress does not prepare a budget in a highly effective way and it wastes time and taxpayer resources to be used for the teaching and research and other missions of universities. I chose to participate in the convergent building a Better Process for budgeting. This is what people do everyday, they seek to solve difficult problems facing the nation. At the same time, my university does support the proposals that we will discuss. I understand that you have copies of my testimony, i will highlight the five consensus proposals that we developed. The first is called the Budget Development plan which synchronizes with the governing cycles to adopt on the congress to adopt a twoyear budget to sign into law by the president. The budget directive plan has three elements and one option. It sets the Discretionary Spending for two years and lifts the shortfall by any debt agreed to in the legislation. And third, authorizes a lookback report to analyze the impact that ten actment of the budget would have on the longterm fiscal outlook. And additionally, it allows congress to have the option of considering one reconciliation bill per fiscal year. It also requires the cbo to have a fiscal state of the nation report and issued in the president ial cycle and outlining the key financial projects and not limited to debts, deficits and revenue spending and a breakdown of the revenues and the tax expenditures and any estimates shortfalls and longterm spending programs. This report is widely distributed and providing the information in readerfriendly ways to allow noninsiders to read the budget. It would provide a full picture of the nations finances, and help the voters to make more informed choices. The third proposal is seeking to look at the long term reforms of the budgets. We pro pose i