Shaheen, Isakson Push for Biennial Federal Budget

After attending a Veterans Day event at the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen participated in forum at the Rudman Center about biennial budgeting with her colleague, U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-GA.

Isakson, who has proposed the idea for a number of years, said he was happy to have Shaheen’s support on the measure, noting that more than 20 states, including New Hampshire, utilize a two-year budget process. Both agreed that the proposal could remove the some of the unending politicking and arguing around the budget in Washington, D.C.

It would also, they both believe, lead to discussions about getting control of the deficits and debt that are spiraling out of control, solutions that would both be bipartisan and sensible.

“We need to change the way we do business,” Shaheen said.

The biennial budget process, which she said received 68 votes in the Senate back in March, would allow for a budget to be introduced in one year and then in the second year, leaders would oversee the implementation of the budget.

Shaheen, who balanced three biennial budgets as governor of New Hampshire, said the process would remove the annual “manufactured crisis” that has hampered both political parties in Washington since the 1980s. She added that it would “encourage” Senators “to make better use of scare resources.” She added that the GAO had identified a number of ways the government could eliminate fraud in health programs, waste in defense, and farm subsidy bills but there was no way of introducing the changes because the country had been without an actual budget for so long.

After cracking a joke about how "good lookin'" the women leaders of New Hampshire were, Isakson said it was time to “get Congress back to work” and said that the biennial budget would be a way of getting leaders to focus on planning, not unlike small businesses and families plan for their futures. The president, he said, would submit a budget to Congress in March of the odd numbered years. The Congress would then approve 12 appropriation bills and make changes or amendments about the president’s proposals, and hold a vote. During the even years, the Congress, Senate, and president, would spend time on oversight, seeing how the money was being spent, as well as what was working and what wasn’t.

Isakson said, with $17 trillion in debt and no way to pay it down, it was time for leaders to get serious about the budget problems. He said the biennial budget would remove the politics of earmarks and other problems. Instead of bringing back the bacon home, Isakson said, leaders would be bringing back the accountability.

After a brief presentation of some of the budget figures, including debt and federal budget line items, Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition asked Shaheen and Isakson some questions about the tenor in Washington and what needed to be done to fix the budget impasse.

Both agreed that the solutions needed to be bipartisan.

Shaheen noted that there seemed to be a small section of politicians that didn’t want to work on any sort of compromise. If supplemental expenditures were needed during the two-year budget process, they could be debated and added later, she said.

Isakson stated that non-discretionary items in the budget like Social Security and Medicare were out of control and needed to be reformed to reflect the health and lifespan of current Americans. Another reform that was needed moving government employees from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan, not unlike private sector employees, something corporations had already moved to in order to control costs.