{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.daines.senate.gov/2024/09/19/daines-on-senate-floor-now-is-the-time-for-serious-budget-reform/", "Daines on Senate Floor: \u201cNow is the Time for Serious Budget Reform\u201d", "2024-09-19", "2024", "2024-09", "Republican", "Senate", "MT", "Steve Daines", "D000618", "www.daines.senate.gov", "daines", "https://www.daines.senate.gov/news/press-releases/", "scraper", "Delivers Remarks Slamming Congress\u2019 Broken Budget Process\n\nU.S. Senator Steve Daines today delivered remarks on the Senate floor calling for serious reforms to Congress\u2019 budget process. Daines highlighted Congress\u2019 record of ignoring the \u201cBudget Control Act\u201d and routine failure to enact all 12 appropriations bills by September 30th.\n\nWatch Daines\u2019 remarks HERE.\n\nDaines\u2019 remarks as prepared for delivery:\n\n\u201cMr. President, it\u2019s been my privilege to represent the people of Montana in Congress for more than a decade.\n\n\u201cI have seen Congress wrestle and struggle with many challenges during my time here. I\u2019ve heard my constituents voice concerns, and deservedly so, about most of them.\n\n\u201cBy far the most consistently bad habit Congress has is its failure to follow its own budget process.\n\n\u201cIn fact, it is not an understatement to say that the budget process has completely collapsed in both chambers.\n\n\u201cAnd boy do I hear about this back home.\n\n\u201cNearly everywhere I go in Montana folks tell me they are tired of Congress\u2019 dysfunction and especially its lack of fiscal discipline.\n\n\u201cFor a body that was elected to represent the will of the people of this country, we are doing the exact opposite.\n\n\u201cThis is simply not what our constituents sent us here to do.\n\n\u201cToo many families in our country are living paycheck to paycheck. They are working multiple jobs to make ends meet.\n\n\u201cMost importantly, they are sacrificing to do so.\n\n\u201cWhen they elect their representatives, they expect good, responsible governing. They expect Congress to operate like they do when it comes to budgeting and spending and living within their means.\n\n\u201cYet year in and year out Congress does anything but.\n\n\u201cLet me read you the tale of the tape.\n\n\u201cThe last time we enacted all 12 appropriations bills by September 30 was 1997.\n\n\u201cThat was nearly three decades ago.\n\n\u201cEven sadder is how Congress has ignored the Budget Act.\n\n\u201cThe Budget Control Act became law in 1974. This law put into place the modern budget process.\n\n\u201cIt was enacted, ironically, to give Congress more control over federal spending and the budget process. Theoretically this would give our constituents a stronger say in the how their tax dollars are spent.\n\n\u201cWhat has Congress done with that authority?\n\n\u201cSince the Budget Control Act became law 50 years ago, Congress has been out of control.\n\n\u201cCongress rarely even passes a budget resolution anymore, which is supposed to start the budget process every spring.\n\n\u201cThat budget resolution is supposed to provide a roadmap for how we approach the appropriations process.\n\n\u201cWithout this roadmap, Congress inevitably finds itself in a spending trainwreck.\n\n\u201cAnd our constituents by default have little say in how their tax dollars are spent.\n\n\u201cAnd that is exactly what has happened year after year.\n\n\u201cIn the past 50 years, since the Budget Control Act was passed, Congress has only enacted all 12 appropriations bills on time four times: 1977, 1989, 1995, and 1997.\n\n\u201cThis year, Senate Democratic leadership hasn\u2019t brought a single appropriations bill to the floor, and we are just 12 days from the beginning of the new fiscal year.\n\n\u201cContinuing Resolutions that fund the government \u2018at current levels\u2019 are the norm. In fact, between 1977 and last year Congress passed 200 Continuing Resolutions. Two hundred!\n\n\u201cAnd thus, the threat of a government shutdown is always looming.\n\n\u201cAll of this forces Congress to fund the government through what we call omnibus appropriations.\n\n\u201cFor those watching back home that means instead of giving each appropriations bill a hearing and the scrutiny it deserves, most of the spending bills are all lumped together into one or two giant bills often thousands of pages long.\n\n\u201cNo one has time to read the entire bill before we pass it so it\u2019s usually full of wasteful spending on pet projects that were inserted in the dead of night.\n\n\u201cSince 1982, Congress has passed 36 omnibus appropriations bills. That is just short of one per year. Since that time, omnibus appropriations bills have served as the legislative vehicle for more than half of the federal government\u2019s appropriations.\n\n\u201cIn short, our broken budget process has created an incredible amount of uncertainty. In fact, the only thing that is certain in this whole mess is that this broken down process has exacerbated the federal government\u2019s out-of-control spending.\n\n\u201cThis is no way to run a household or small business, not to mention the government.\n\n\u201cAnd the American people know it.\n\n\u201cWhy is all of this so important?\n\n\u201cAs I mentioned, Congress does not have a revenue problem. Congress has a spending problem.\n\n\u201cOur failed budget process is not the only cause for the fiscal disaster facing our country but it plays a significant role.\n\n\u201cThe last time the government had a budget surplus was 23 years ago, in 2001.\n\n\u201cThe nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that the budget deficit for this year will be around $2 trillion.\n\n\u201cThis is unprecedented.\n\n\u201cIn fact, the deficit over the next decade will now total a staggering $22.1 trillion.\n\n\u201cEven more frightening is the fact that Medicare will be broke by 2031 and Social Security by 2034.\n\n\u201cBy 2035 CBO estimates that debt held by the public will top $50 trillion and be the equivalent of 122 percent of GDP.\n\n\u201cThose are staggering numbers.\n\n\u201cWe can no longer ignore this crisis.\n\n\u201cTo start the long process of fixing it we need to start with serious budget reform.\n\n\u201cThe people of Montana know I am not a creature of Washington. Nor do I care to be.\n\n\u201cI am not a career politician. I did not work my way up through the ranks of the state legislature. My experience is in the private sector.\n\n\u201cAnyone who\u2019s been to Montana knows that while Montana is the most beautiful state in our country, the strength of our state lies with our people.\n\n\u201cMontanans are the hardest working folks in the country.\n\n\u201cThey believe in an honest day\u2019s work for an honest day\u2019s pay.\n\n\u201cAnd they never hesitate to share a good dose of common sense\u2014something that is severely lacking in Washington, D.C., today.\n\n\u201cMontana common sense combined with my private sector experience taught me a number of principles I think we can apply to our budget process.\n\n\u201cFor starters, we need to hold members accountable, and performance needs to be scrutinized.\n\n\u201cWhen structural failure persists, it must be addressed.\n\n\u201cFor that reason, if Members of Congress cannot pass all 12 appropriations bills on time they should not get paid.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s that simple.\n\n\u201cIf you don\u2019t do your job, you don\u2019t deserve a paycheck. Especially when the American people are the folks paying you.\n\n\u201cThat should put an end to our government shutdowns. And let\u2019s be honest, shutting down the government only punishes the American people.\n\n\u201cPut the pain on Congress and that will start to change things around here in a hurry.\n\n\u201cSecond, Congress should address all spending, including discretionary and non-discretionary programs.\n\n\u201cThink about it, our discretionary spending process is utterly dysfunctional, and there are virtually no forcing mechanisms to require Congress to actually deal with the autopilot spending that accounts for nearly 70 percent of federal spending.\n\n\u201cAnd avoiding the tough challenges within mandatory spending means our national debt will just continue to soar to new incomprehensible heights, and our children and grandchildren will be without the safety net support they are counting on for their retirement years.\n\n\u201cThis will require bipartisan cooperation to save these programs for future generations.\n\n\u201cAnd speaking of bipartisanship, the reforms we make must work in both unified and divided government.\n\n\u201cRight now it is impossible to pass a bicameral budget during divided government. And this just leads to the unwanted, behind-closed-doors mad dash as the expiration date for the latest continuing resolution approaches.\n\n\u201cWhich leads to my final and perhaps most important point.\n\n\u201cAny reforms to our broken budget and spending process must be bipartisan.\n\n\u201cThere will always be disagreement on how taxpayer dollars should be spent but we should be able to agree on a workable, durable process to make those decisions.\n\n\u201cTo that end, we need to build on the good work of my friend and former colleague, the late Senator Mike Enzi from Wyoming.\n\n\u201cDuring more than two decades serving in the Senate, Mike worked tirelessly on this issue. Many of his proposals deserve a strong look if Congress is to find a solution.\n\n\u201cI believe two in particular deserve attention.\n\n\u201cThe first would reorient the budget resolution to a two-year cycle. This would allow Congress more time to not only develop but also enforce the budget.\n\n\u201cI also believe Senator Enzi\u2019s proposal to create a new special reconciliation process that could only be used for reducing the deficit also warrants consideration.\n\n\u201cThere are many others. I know a number of my colleagues have weighed in on this issue as well. I welcome their ideas.\n\n\u201cAnd so the question I pose today to members on both sides of the aisle is this: \u2018When are we going to get serious?\u2019\n\n\u201cHow many more times are we going to kick the can down the road? How many more shutdowns? How high must our deficits and debt climb before we say enough is enough?\n\n\u201cMr. President, I submit today that we reached that point long ago.\n\n\u201cIt is past time to bring the common sense of my constituents to bear on the nation\u2019s budget process.\n\n\u201cNow is the time for serious budget reform.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:43:57Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.daines.senate.gov/2024/09/19/daines-on-senate-floor-now-is-the-time-for-serious-budget-reform/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7867608219385147, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}