This week on Facing the Future, with the federal government still shut down over partisan spending plans, we talked with Representatives Bill Huizenga (R-MI) and Scott Peters (D-CA), Co-Chairs of the Bipartisan Fiscal Forum. They have introduced two pieces of legislation aimed at improving the nation’s fiscal outlook. One would create a bipartisan fiscal commission to recommend solutions with an expedited vote in Congress and the other would dock the pay of Members of Congress for not doing their budget and appropriation bills on time. Concord Coalition Executive Director Carolyn Bourdeaux joined the conversation.
Peters described the growing national debt as “generational theft,” and he observed that “this is something that can only be solved in a bipartisan way. Democrats are going to have to deal with spending cuts, and Republicans are going to have to deal with tax increases. And, I think every American understands that. So, I’m committed to doing it.” He warned that, “interest rates are going to be going higher and that exposes our taxpayers to more obligations and also crowds out the kind of investment on the private side and the public side that we want and really limits our kids’ opportunities.”
Huizenga added that if nothing is done to improve the nation’s fiscal path, “We’re going to have this interest monster that’s going to continue to grow and grow and grow, consuming a larger and larger percentage of our entire spending. By the way, Scott and I will never vote on about 75% of all the federal government’s spending, not because we don’t want to but because it’s on autopilot. So we’re going to have to wrestle that one to the ground, too.”
A fiscal commission is needed, Huizenga said, because “we’ve got to do something, and we clearly have demonstrated that we don’t have the discipline to go through the appropriations process the way it should be working. So I have come to the conclusion that our best step forward is to have this type of commission, not to just study, but to actually propose. It would be all four corners, bipartisan, bicameral, meaning the Speaker, the minority leader in both the House and Senate, the majority leader in the Senate, are all going to be able to choose three members of Congress plus one outside expert. We want to try to put a tight frame on it to then come up with a series of recommendations and then to have those recommendations get an up-or-down vote. No modifiers, no amendments, no changes. Let’s just get the cards on the table and say, yes, this is something we need to do, or no, it’s not.”
Peters noted that, “One of the criticisms we sometimes get is that Congress should do this, and we don’t need a commission. We should do this in Congress. Clearly, that’s correct. But it’s clear to Bill and me, to a lot of us, that it’s just not happening and what we need is a process that’s going to force us to deal with the facts, force us to be bipartisan, and force us to put a bill on the floor of the House and the Senate for an up or down vote.”
In addition to their fiscal commission bill, Huizenga and Peters are co-sponsoring a No Budget No Pay bill that would prevent Congress from being paid unless it passes a budget resolution and all 12 annual appropriations bills on time.
Peters recounted the success a similar law has had in California. “They enacted this rule in 2010,” he said. “They were always late and the first year that they enacted this no-budget, no pay rule, I think they were over, like, three days, and then everyone realized, ‘oh my gosh, I’m not getting paid.’ They passed their budget, and they were never late again because they had skin in the game. It’s as obvious as anything. If we were not getting paid right now all the Republicans would be clamoring for Speaker Johnson to bring us back. All the Democrats would be clamoring for Chuck Schumer to make a deal. Not only is that the right thing to do, but it would also be effective in helping us get our work done. It would provide the right incentive for us. And it worked in California, beautifully. No one’s lost a paycheck since, since that first year.”
Huizenga said that he and Peters are continuingly pushing the two bills. “The advantage we have is that the growing number of voices of our colleagues is, I think, going to make this inevitable. Now, I would prefer to have it be voluntarily inevitable, meaning there’s just going to be so much momentum behind it that we do the right thing, or there’s going to be something that’s going to happen, probably with the economy, that is going to harm millions of Americans, which is going to force us into some sort of action. And, that’s far less desirable in my mind, I’m sure in Scott’s as well. But it’s hard ringing the bell when you have people that aren’t interested in acknowledging the problem.”
Hear more on Facing the Future. Concord Coalition Senior Advisor Bob Bixby hosts the program each week on WKXL in Concord N.H., and it is also available via podcast. Join us as The Concord Coalition team discusses issues relating to national fiscal policy with budget experts, industry leaders, and elected officials. Past broadcasts are available here. You can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or with an RSS feed. Follow Facing the Future on Facebook, and watch videos from past episodes on The Concord Coalition YouTube channel.
