Comments on S. 2629, the Budget Reform Act of 1982

In testimony before a Senate committee, the Comptroller General discussed the Budget Reform Act of 1982 which is designed to establish a 2-year budget process, improve congressional control over the budget, streamline the requirements of the budget process, improve the legislative and budgetary processes by providing additional time for oversight and other legislative activities, and provide stability and coherence for recipients of federal funds. Biennial budgeting offers several potential advantages over the current system: it can reduce the number of times Congress must act on the same programs and it can also provide more funding certainty for recipients of Federal moneys or services. Determining the sequence of key events and constructing a realistic biennial timetable is very difficult. GAO favors a timetable having congressional action on the budget take place in the first year of a Congress, with oversight and other activities concentrated primarily in the second year. A biennial budget system should provide the flexibility to adjust to contingencies and changing conditions. The proposed legislation has several features designed to streamline the current budget process. The present budget process has been complicated by the wide divergence in budget estimates coming from different sources, particularly for revenues and entitlements. Biennial budgeting makes estimating even more important. A basic feature of the S. 2629 timetable is a set-aside period for Congress to perform oversight. While this should certainly go a long way to enabling Congress to do more oversight, the bill contains no procedures or mechanism for conducting oversight. Because the budget act is integral to the way Congress behaves as an institution, reforming it will require a bipartisan consensus within Congress and careful balancing of conflicting objectives.