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Published Saturday, February 04, 2012 in Local

U.S. House passes bills to improve budget process

From Special Reports

news@newnan.com

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed two bills aimed at updating and improving the federal budget process, reports Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga. Third District.

The first bill, H.R. 3582, the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act, was introduced by Georgia Representative Tom Price (GA-06) and passed the House on Thursday with bipartisan support. The bill would require the Congressional Budget Office to complete a macroeconomic analysis for legislation with an estimated budgetary impact of 0.25 percent of gross domestic product (approximately $39 billion in 2012) and greater.

Westmoreland was a cosponsor of the bill.

"Often, we get these 'scores' from the CBO and can only see the bottom line cost of the bill rather than the full impact it may have on the economy," said Westmoreland. "That encourages the use of budget gimmicks -- like we saw in ObamaCare -- and misleads Members of Congress and the American people on the true cost of some bills. The Pro-Growth Budgeting Act will improve the information we all receive on these larger bills, and will help to encourage all Members to consider the long-term impact legislation could have on our economy."

In addition, on Friday, the House passed H.R. 3578, the Baseline Reform Act with bipartisan support. The bill was introduced by Georgia Representative Rob Woodall (GA-07) and would remove the inflation adjustment to discretionary spending from the CBO's budget baseline. The current formula's use of this automatic increase in spending encourages higher spending -- even though House Republicans have been fighting to change that mentality in Washington, according to Westmoreland.

"The federal budget process is complex, and unfortunately creates a disconnect between representatives and their constituents," said Westmoreland. "We have seen this over and over again, where one organization claims a bill will save money while another claims it will result in a deficit. Because of the arcane budget rules in Washington, the American people rarely get a straight answer about how much something will actually cost. The Baseline Reform Act is a great start to fixing that problem by removing these automatic increases to the spending baseline so that increasing funding for a project doesn't somehow result in a spending cut. Only in Washington does math like that fly. I applaud my good friends and colleagues from Georgia for their work to improve our budget process."

Both bills will be sent to the Senate, however, as has become the norm in Congress, Majority Leader Harry Reid is not expected to schedule a vote on either any time soon. The president is expected to deliver his budget proposal to Congress Feb. 13, kicking off the FY2013 budget season.

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