Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. I thank the Presiding Officer and I thank my colleague
Senator Isakson, and I am pleased to join him on the floor today as we
reintroduce this bipartisan legislation, the Biennial Budgeting and
Appropriations Act. I want to start by recognizing the good work of
Senator Isakson because he started working on this issue when he came
to the Senate in 2005, and he has introduced this legislation in every
Congress since then. I have been pleased to be able to join him in the
last two Congresses.

I think we have an opportunity in this Congress to pass this
commonsense bipartisan reform. As Senator Isakson pointed out, there is
no question that the budget process in Washington is broken. Since 1980
there have been only two budgets that have been finished on time,
according to the process. In that timeframe Congress has resorted to
more than 150 short-term funding bills or continuing resolutions, and
we all remember what it was like when the government shut down in
October of 2013. It cost the economy $24 billion. It hurt small
business. It hurt people across this country. That is no way to govern.

While we have made significant progress to reduce deficits in recent
years, we need a new way to do business in Washington. Biennial
budgeting won't fix everything, but as Senator Isakson said, it is an
important reform that will allow us to work across the aisle not only
to make more sense of the budget process but to be better stewards of
taxpayer dollars.

We know that biennial budgeting works. I can attest to that
personally, coming from the State of New Hampshire where we have a
biennial budget. I served three terms as Governor. We were able in each
of those bienniums to pass a budget that was balanced, that allowed us
to get the budget done in the first year of the election cycle and in
the second year to be able to have oversight. It works in New
Hampshire, it works in 20 States around the country, and it can work in
Washington.

Biennial budgeting offers a better process that encourages us to work
together to pass budgets on time and to use taxpayer dollars more
efficiently. As Senator Isakson says, in the first year congressional
agencies would put together a 2-year budget. In the second year
Congress would have time to conduct oversight to give agencies the
ability to focus on achieving their missions.

As we all know, there are regular reports from the Government
Accountability Office, GAO, that identify areas of waste, fraud, and
duplicative programs within government.

For example, they have identified ways to reform the farm programs,
to cut down on inefficiencies in defense, to reduce fraud in health
programs, but the current budget process doesn't provide an effective
mechanism to regularly review GAO's recommendations.

Under my annual budgeting, we would be able to take a close look at
those recommendations to implement savings in the second year which
will allow us to figure out how we can more effectively provide
programs to the American people and eliminate those that don't work and
support those that do.

As we said, in 2013 we had a very strong vote with 68 Senators voting
to endorse the concept of biannual budgeting. It was a very strong
bipartisan vote. A similar biannual budget bill passed the House last
year with a bipartisan bill vote. It is clear the momentum is growing
for this concept because people understand we have to do something to
reform our budget process.

The bill we are introducing today has 22 bipartisan cosponsors. I
know we are both working to get more bipartisan sponsors on the bill,
and we think we have a great shot, with support from this body, to pass
biannual budgeting. We think there is support in the House to do that,
and I look forward to working with Senator Isakson and my colleagues in
the Senate to get this done.

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