Senator Lankford Slams President's Budget, Calls for Reforms to Budget Process

Statement

Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today delivered a speech on the Senate floor about today's release of the President's Fiscal Year 2017 budget proposal and some needed reforms to the Congressional budgeting process in order to address our debt crisis. In the speech, Lankford proposes reforms such as biennial budgeting, government shutdown prevention incentives, and the elimination of budget gimmicks.

President Obama's $4.1 trillion budget proposal calls for $1.1 trillion in discretionary spending, an amount that abides by the caps set in last year's Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, which Lankford voted against.

While serving in the House, Lankford introduced the Government Shutdown Prevention Act, which would incentivize timely budget deals by creating an automatic Continuing Resolution (CR) for any regular appropriations bill not completed before the end of the fiscal year. After the first 120 days of not completing a budget, the auto-CR funding would be reduced by one percentage point and would continue to be reduced by that margin every 90 days.

Source