Tuesday, June 7, 2011

GOP May Push For Two-Year Budget as Price of Debt Deal

Republican leaders are considering asking the White House to back a significant reform of the federal budget process in exchange for raising the nation’s debt ceiling.
The GOP wish list for hiking the debt ceiling will be long, and Republican sources contend that overhauling the annual appropriations process is in the mix.
The proposed spending revamp, which has been pending in Congress for more than a decade, would require the president to submit a budget every other year at the beginning of the first session of Congress.
Supporters say passing a two-year budget would allow Congress to focus more on oversight issues instead of constantly trying to hit spending deadlines, many of which aren’t met.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who has previously voted for a biennial budget bill, has emphasized the need for structural spending reforms when discussing the debt-limit talks. He has declined, however, to go into specifics.
Pressed on the issue last week, Boehner said, “I think there needs to be real review of the entire budget process, and I’ll probably have more to say on that later.”

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