{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=c849015d-462d-4473-93ff-da3431e177d9", "If youre going to complain, you better have solutions", "2014-09-16", "2014", "2014-09", "Republican", "House", "WY", "Michael Enzi", "E000285", "www.enzi.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Congress is getting ready to vote on another short-term continuing resolution to fund the government for a few more weeks. U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said it is time to stop this Band-Aid and bailing wire approach to budgeting that has become the norm.\u00a0He presented his Penny Plan and biennial budgeting bill as realistic common-sense solutions to help put the government\u2019s fiscal house in order and end deficit spending.\r\nEnzi emphasized that Congress should stop deal-making and start legislating to bring America\u2019s budget process into the 21st century and guarantee a more secure future for the generations to come.\r\n\u00a0\u201cSometimes as lawmakers we seem to act as if this problem is too big to solve, but it\u2019s not. Understanding how to reach and maintain financial health is not rocket science. It merely requires exercising common sense and commitment,\u201d said Enzi.\r\nA simple and straightforward way to put our country back on the right fiscal path, the Penny Plan would cut a single penny from every dollar the federal government spends, balancing the budget in just three years and then capping spending at a reasonable level. Over a 10-year budget window, the bill would cut spending by about $7.6 trillion.\r\n\u201cThe Penny Plan steers us away from some of the controversy and political traps we\u2019ve seen for spending reductions,\u201d said Enzi. \u201cAt the onset, it does not identify the specific cuts that are necessary to achieve the one percent reduction in savings. Instead, such decisions are left for us to make.\u00a0Its beauty is it puts a broad plan into action.\u201d\r\nSimilar to how the Wyoming Legislature works, Enzi\u2019s biennial budget bill would force the federal government to budget over a two-year period, instead of the one-year window as it does now, giving Congress more time to scrutinize spending and eliminate duplication and waste.\r\n\u201cWe obviously don\u2019t have time to look through the budget. We keep doing continuing resolutions and then we do an omnibus bill. We\u2019re supposed to do those through 12 separate bills,\u201d said Enzi. \u201cTwelve separate bills that get debate, not just in committee, but on the floor of the senate with amendments. It has been a long time since we have done that. Biennial budgeting would allow us\u00a0 to get into the nerve center of spending and get something done.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "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.enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=c849015d-462d-4473-93ff-da3431e177d9"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7193139754235744, "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"}