GOP introduces budget reform bills

{mosads}Other bills introduced include the Legally Binding Budget Act, by Rep. Diane Black (Tenn.), that makes the budget a law signed by the president; a bill by Rep. Rob Woodall (Ga.) that would remove automatic inflation increases in discretionary accounts; and the Review Every Dollar Act by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah), which would sunset all federal programs periodically.

Also in the package are Rep. Scott Garrett’s (N.J.) bill to change the way Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are evaluated for budgetary purposes and Rep. Tom Price’s (Ga.) bill that would require the Congressional Budget Office to examine the dynamic effects of policies on growth and incorporate them into the scoring of legislation. Such a change would tend to show greater deficit reduction from tax cuts favored by Republicans.

“The Congressional Budget Office uses only a ‘static’ model to measure the fiscal impact of a given piece of legislation. That is a model that has proven to be incapable of providing the type of macroeconomic diagnosis folks need to make sure we are pursuing policies that will help generate economic opportunity and bring down the nation’s debt,” Price said.

The House GOP is meeting next week to determine what its “ask” will be for the raising this fall of the nation’s debt ceiling. It remains to be seen if any of the budget process reforms will be included in the House demands.

In January, the debt ceiling was raised once the Senate agreed to a No Budget, No Pay bill that would have withheld lawmaker pay if each chamber had not passed a budget this year.