This House Committee on the modernization of Congress Heard from congresswoman nita lowey chairs the committee. This hearing was announced before congresswoman low we announced he would retire from Congress Following this term. Committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. This hearing is titled recommendations for approving the budget and appropriations process, a look at the work of the select committee on process reform and i recognize myself for five minutes to give an opening statement. The 104th congress which convened in 1945 was the last to pass Appropriations Bills. That was almost 25 years ago. Most house members serving today have never seen a process that works the way it was supposed to where stand alone bills were passed on time. And established by the bipartisan budget act of 2018. The committee was charged with making recommendations to significantly reform the process. It was acknowledgment that the process isnt working the way it should. No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appropriations by law. This power of the purse is at the foundation of our constitutions separation of powers. Its a constitutionally mandated check on executive power. When Congress Fails to pass Appropriations Bills on time, it seeds power to the executive branch. Congress has passed 117 resolutions since 1998. Thats a lot of time spent dealing with funding decisions, but think of all the Time Congress would have to focus on other legislative duties if Appropriations Bills were passed on time. Making decisions about how to allocate funding for federal programs is tough work but its congress job. The American People deserve a fully functioning government. While the joint select committee did not pass a bill, it produced a lot of important work that provides helpful framework for thinking about reform today. Members of the committee engaged in serious discussions about what it would take to fix the budget and appropriations process and many of the idea that is came out of those discussions are well worth considering. Thats our intent today to talk about problems with the process and potentially areas of agreement where both parties in chambers could find common ground. While were working on the while were focusing on the work of the joint select committee we dont need to limit ourselves to the recommendations that that committee considered. Im looking forward to hearing ideas from the Witnesses Today and im particularly grateful to appropriations chair ms lowey and mr. Womack to tag teamed to lead that committee. I appreciate your leadership. I invite our vice chair tom graves for opening remarks. Thank you chairman. I thank you for joining us today and our witnesses that are going to be with us and taking time to speak with us today. As cochairs of the joint select committee, i know you worked really, really hard to fix our current funding process. And i hope today you know that this hearing is proof that your work living on. It was not for not. We are going to work with you and continue building on your work from last year. This select committee has that opportunity to be build on your foundation. Im glad youre here to take a part, be a part of this today. I know we all want to solve this and hopefully today we can gather idea and advise how to tackle the complex issue. When it comes to the funding process in congress, i think we all know we can do better. The American People, our constituents, they expect us to do better and were charged with this responsibility of using taxpayer dollars wisely and effectively and i look forward to our success as we move forward. Each party, each chamber, and each administration runs into the brick wall of the funding process each and every time it seems like over the last couple of years. As one of our Witnesses Today has illustrated to the joint select Committee Last year, his quote was its been more than 20 years since all appropriation bills were passed prior to the start of the fiscal year and just 27 of senators have seen the process work. And for house members its only been 16 . We have a lot of appropriators in the room today, myself and the chairman as well. And so i know this problem is personal to each of us. So, as well as to our two at the panel here on this area of appropriato appropriators as well. Its been tough for all of us to spend hours in mark ups and negotiations and see our work get chewed up by the process. Its tough to see it discarded by continuing regulation and go through this year after year after year. We have different backgrounds, perspectives, and philosophies yet what we have in common with were trapped in the broken funding process together. And i think todays hearing in a bipartisan spirit where we get to pick up on the efforts you left us with last year, hopefully well get a chance to fix this and get out of the broken cycle were in. Thank you mr. Chairman. I look forward to hearing. Thank you. Today we welcome the testimony of five witnesses. On our first panel we have representative nita lowey and ept live steve womack. Both worked on process reform and i have Great Respect and admiration for your leadership so thank you for that. Despite this being a busy week, they have agreed to provide five minutes of testimony. Once they finish, well give them back their precious time and move on to the next panel. Chair lowey, youre recognized for five minutes. Chairman kilmer, vice chairman graves, members of the select committee, i am pleased to join you this morning to frankly speak with you in a room that is very familiar, familiar faces, and to be here alongside Ranking Member womack who served with me as the cochair on the budget of appropriations reform in the 115th congress. While concerns over a partisan process for Senate Consideration prevented that committee from reporting out recommendations, House Democrats have used the first first nine months of our new majority to make important improvements to the budget and appropriations process. Im very pleased to say that one of the most important changes that i advocated for in the joint select committee raising unworkable budget caps was achieved on a bipartisan basis in july. Because of 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 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 serves 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 door on reckless 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 step 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 process. Moving from annual to biennial budget resolution, and to provide a mechanism to facilitate actions on appropriations 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 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 congressionally directed spending. It is imperative that congress exercise its 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 transferred our authority to 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 appropriations process 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 occasions, 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 bipartisan 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 Shelden Whitehouse was the first. And for this, i would encourage you if get some first downs rather than throw the hail mary. Like we do so often. The joint 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 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 is to 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 for 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 owens, 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 at 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 federal 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 hoagland is a senior vicepresident at the policy center and in this 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 in 1982 to 2003, mr. Hoagland served as a staff member and director of the Senate Budget committee including reporting to u. S. Senator pete diminici. And he also participated in federal budget meetings, including the Graham Rudman budget deficit reduction 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 two decades and Student Financial aid decisions are held up, and important medical research is delayed and longterm planning is made more complex 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 action 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 action plan has three elements and one option. It sets the Discretionary Spending for two years and lifts the debt limit by any shortfall by any debt agreed to in the legislation. And third, authorizes a lookback report to analyze the impact that the enactment 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. Our second proposal 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 expen