Senate budget leaders make bipartisan recommendations to supercommittee

{mosads}”The Committee does not have agreement on whether appropriation bills should be enacted on one- or two-year cycles or a combination of one- and two-year cycles. However, many members of the Committee support biennial appropriations as well as biennial budgets,” the letter states.

A second set of recommendations involves easing the “vote-a-rama” process under which the Senate considers a budget resolution. The open amendment process allows for hundreds of amendments and can take weeks — this fact discourages majority leaders from allowing an resolution on the floor. The Senate has not passed a budget in 900 days.

Finally, the two senators agreed to recommend the Senate adopt procedures designed to force consideration of a budget. One suggestion, to allow individual senators to open debate on a budget if no resolution has been brought up, could have allowed the Gang of Six to introduce its budget for debate earlier this year.

The budget committee leaders had mulled recommending the president sign the budget resolution, but in the end the senators did not make that recommendation.

The deficit supercommittee is crafting a set of deficit-reducing measures by a Nov. 23 deadline; its report will enjoy rare fast-track procedures in both the House and Senate. While budget process changes will not in themselves help the supercommittee meet its $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction mandate, the report could serve as a unique vehicle for getting the changes in place.