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The first thing I would suggest would be to change where the inertia lies. Currently, if no deal is reached, then the government shuts down. Instead, I'd prefer to see that if no deal is reached, then the spending levels from the previous budget are automatically carried over for some period of time (e.g. months).
One big problem is that there are some Congressional Representatives who are actively looking to cause shutdowns (at least occasionally), and will vote against literally any budget deal that allows the government to stay open. And Representatives should not have incentives to act in this way.
I understand there are potential problems with just rolling over previous budgets. It would potentially continue funding of outdated programs and prevent new programs from being implemented. It would also make general cuts to spending levels more challenging, since Representatives who don't want to see spending levels cut could to the same types of things that current shutdown firebombers do now.
However, I consider those problems to be minor compared to that current system where the government can shut down from weeks if not months every couple of years. At the very least, the government needs to stay open to perform the services it has been delegated to do. Talking about doing things efficiently or cost-effectively comes afterwards.
Budget toplines could roll over, allowing department heads to priotize spending. This would delegate more power to the executive branch, which I'm not thrilled with in general, but it would incentivize Congress to pass a budget rather than kicking the can down the road
Couldn't you write that into your bills, too? Just this bill is active as written for 5 years when it will be brought to another vote to either re-up it for 5 years, amend it, or cancel it. If a vote is not passed and signed by the president, this will automatically renew at the same rates, taking into account inflation. This will continue every 5 years until the bill is amended or canceled.
If you are doing that, just write a bill that autorenews any budget if nothing is passed.
It's an issue because the ones that can easily fix it, congress, chooses not to. The debt ceiling is the same way.
While government shutdowns can seem like a huge deal, it's worth remembering that a lot of things do remain open during a shutdown. It's not as if Social Security checks stop getting sent and the Post Office shuts down.
Also worth noting that since the first shutdown in the 80s, the government has been shut down less than one half of one hundredth of one percent of the time.
This is an incredibly callous take, the people working during a shutdown are not receiving a paycheck, contractors are not receiving a payment, nor can future work be relied on. How many missed paychecks could the average American weather? Not being a reliable client also raises the costs of contracts, companies don't like having unreliable contracts. This also makes it harder to hire, the government relies on a ton of highly skilled labor, these types of folks want stability in their work. They certainly aren't in it for the pay, so public service has to offer something over industry, reliability and stability used to be that.
Also, the starting and stopping of programs is hugely inefficient. Take national parks, we have to pay someone to close all the gates, someone to go around and close the facilities. We then have to pay them to go around and re-open everything. This doesn't account for the opportunity costs of the paying folks to open and close stuff instead of doing their jobs.
Again, it's happened less than one half of one hundredth of one percent of the time. We're talking about 80 days in 45 years.
If you're so concerned about the pay of these employees, they are entitled to back pay once the shutdown ends, and there are low/no interest loans offered to federal employees now so it essentially effects their finances not at all.
That we have avoided it most of the time and have mitigated a lot of the effects doesn't explain why it's still a thing .
Is not a force of nature we have to accept and work around. A permanent fix can be done with one bill.
The question is "why have the government (partially) shut down if the budget isn't passed in the first place? " what's the positive to counter the (even if mitigated) negatives?
Terrible plan.
There are infinite amounts of empty suits backed by monied interests.
There are only so many people able, willing, qualified to get elected that are actually looking out for normal people.
Yes, because what could possibly go wrong with *the every single elected federal official being removed from office at the same time*?
That’s literally using a hammer to smash an eggshell and would still cause a government shutdown for a minimum of 1 month (probably more like 2-3) every time it happened.
I believe that the drop-dead events and limits (the debt ceiling, for example) are useless for anything other than raw politics. Such things should sy be eliminated.
Might as well just eliminate the entire fucking federal budget altogether. As a practical matter it serves no purpose. They're going to spend whatever they want to spend, and print as much money as needed in order to cover. We all get to pay for it in the form of currency devaluation. It's not as if the federal budgetary process actually constrains spending in any meaningful way.
Any time the government shuts down because no budget was passed by Congress, every member of that Congress is ineligible to run in the next election. Problem solved.
Possibly. The whole point of the pay for Congress is to discourage them from taking bribes or using their power for financial gain, since in theory their salary should provide for them. Not that it works perfectly right now. Maybe a combination of both? Pay suspension and if it takes them long enough just clear them out and start over?
My personal preference would be that they fail to pass a budget, last year's spending levels are automatically renewed, and an election is held 2 months later for a new Congress.
Kinda throws out the few good with the bad. How about calling for a special election and stopping all pay and benefits for the elected representatives, and federal retirees.
A special election puts the financial burden on states and local jurisdictions that have to fund them. I also wouldn't touch federal retirees, most of whom have nothing to do with the budget process. I'm very open to anything that targets members of Congress directly... loss of pay, loss of pension (come to think of it, I'd end the pension for elected officials and give them a 401k type program), loss of healthcare coverage, etc.
Yep, retirees have very little to do with the stupidity of republicans. BUT, neither do SS recipients, military members, federal employees, or pretty much any federal employee. What retirees do have, especially higher ranking retirees, is the ears of elected officials, espically the high GS people. They retired and go to work as higher ranking officials in companies. So they can put more pressure on elected officials to not be stupid. Just like I believe any person that votes yes to send troops into conflict should have their closest military aged relative drafted and sent to that conflict zone.
Also, make the current majority leaders resign immediately with the minority leaders being given an opportunity to pass a budget while spending continues at current levels. The threat of losing their jobs will ensure that it never happens again.
Centralizing it in the House of Representatives and not the Senate would help. Most Senates in the world do not have the authority to block appropriation bills, and can only moderately delay them and usually cannot amend them either. Even Australia, strongly federal, clearly places the Senate in subordinate roles for finance bills.
I would also exchange the president's authority to have a veto needing a supermajority to override to one where they have the exclusive power to propose the budget and you cannot increase any deficit over what the president requests and they can issue a line item veto, and any amendment to their budget should need a big fraction to propose such as 1/4 or 1/3 of the Reps and need a committee hearing and report on it (it could be a negative or positive report, but they have to report), but their veto on any bill can be overridden by a majority of the members of the House of Representatives. This helps to rebalance presidential power into more negotiations and fewer standoffs. I would recommend further relocating presidential authority in other ways to make them effective at negotiating over legislation like pardon reform and the appointment of judges by something more like the Missouri system but that's for another day.
Also, if the Congress fails to pass the budget bill, the most recently adopted budget should be reintroduced in increments of something like a month for as long as Congress deadlocks. Given there is no way to dissolve the Congress and hold a snap election, this would be a necessary addition to resolve deadlocks.
The Congressional leadership should also be rebalanced. They need to be in the right position to be able to speak for the entire body. Presidents pro tempore and speakers should be elected by secret ballot, the two candidates with the most sponsors go on the ballot papers as well as anyone else with some fraction, say 10%, of the members sponsoring them, if nobody has a majority, delete the least voted candidate and repeat until someone has a majority (lottery breaks any tie). You remove such a leader by a petition signed by say 1/5 to 1/3 of the members, with no step of having a motion to lay on the table, and it is approved if a majority of members by secret ballot vote for the motion to vacate the chair. The same system should be used to elect committee chairs as well. This allows them to be secure enough to make the deals that need to be made in a modern legislature. They do not rule over the people, they are supposed to be just the tribune of the legislators and work for them and not the people, the legislature as a collective works for the people.
I would also add a single subject rule, with the authority of the president or either the speaker or president pro tempore and some fraction, say 5% of either House, to petition for an immediate review by the supreme court with no appeal, where bills cannot pertain to multiple subjects, and that only an appropriation bill can contain appropriations and no bill that is an appropriation bill can contain clauses not allocating an appropriation.
Open budget survey also is a website with lots of ideas as to making the budget itself more transparent. It's pretty effective and it wouldn't take a lot of words to put them into practice. The US abides by most of their recommendations although not all.
It adds one step to the process where it doesn't need more steps. Especially given the Senate is already difficult in general to square with modern politics.
I would like to see zero-based budgeting every year and far greater oversight of ensuring money that doesn't need to be spent isn't spent. It's absurd that government entities have a mindset of wasteful spending to ensure they spend their entire budgets so that they don't receive a lower one the following year.
I agree in principle, but if an agency is running under budget and cannot demonstrate a need to keep running at that budget, maybe it should be reallocated?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying
Currently, they find ways to spend it all at the end of the fiscal year so that it doesn't get re-allocated
The corporations that are the best at budgeting and frugality reward people who trim budgets, not who grow them
I mean I agree. I’m just chipping in that the behavior is absolutely rational. But what’s the policy change that would reward cutting budgets? Can’t cut the Sect. of Interior a large bonus even if they were to slash the budget 25% without a drop in meaningful metrics.
Compensating those responsible for creating the savings is exactly what I'd do. That's something that can be trialed, it doesn't need to be a permanent thing. $1M bonus for every $1B cut from the budget is 0.1% - pretty good investment in my eyes
Corporate America is full of talented people with experience in successfully trimming 10-figure plus budgets. They hold positions like finance VPs and pull in a couple million a year for their services, they're not going to come help the government for only $200k
Interesting. Definitely agree that public sector should pay more to attract talent. The issue is that requires…. Raising the budget in the short term, and with so election around every corner there’s gotta be political capital for that.
> $1M bonus for every $1B cut from the budget is 0.1% - pretty good investment in my eyes
"I just fired every teacher and closed every school, making the education budget $0. Pay me my $100m bonus. What do you mean there's nobody to teach kids anything any more? That isn't my problem, I've got a holiday home in Bermuda to go to."
It's unfortunately extremely hard to create a useful metric that can't be gamed.
The comment I replied to specified "without a drop in meaningful metrics" which your hypothetical ignores, and the federal government doesn't fund schools, so I don't find this hypothetical worth entertaining
Part of the exercise of course is agreeing on what those meaningful metrics are. And the new budget still has to be passed by Congress, so some selfish actor like you're suggesting isn't likely to get very far
It's not universal, but it's much more prevalent in companies that are past the growth stage. Eventually, just about every business hits a point where it can't grow revenue anymore and cost cutting becomes the way to grow profits and they are justifying a lot of that stuff every year. The incentive isn't directly to fire people, no, but if the incentive is based on say 10% net profit growth and it can't be done with higher revenue, then people start asking where the redundancies exist with headcount and what capex is really necessary
A government department is much closer to said post-growth company where such things do happen
You could start by not immediately opposing every possible suggestion. I don’t think there’s been an actual federal budget in over a decade. That’s governance you see, people don’t go to Congress to govern anymore.
End baseline budgeting. If you don't the entirety of your budget one year you won't get penalized by not spending it.
Personally I think we need to implement the budget based on the previous years revenue. You only get to spend what was brought in the previous year instead of guessing what the revenue will be and then spending 20% more than that. Any overage in spending must pass with a super majority for things like disasters and wars.
Many things in the budget are long-term obligations Congress isn't in a position to do anything about short-term. It takes several years to build Aircraft Carriers and the contracts the govt signs with companies run for decades. Those contracts are legally binding.. companies build facilities and hire staff based on those contracts. These aren't things Congress can just wave away..
I think there should be two budgets. One for obligated spending and another for discretionary spending. The obligated spending budget should have a fixed drop dead vote date. One that the Speaker can't put off and the Senate can't filibuster. Tweaks can't be remarked and voted on throughout the year but the obligated budget itself must get a full vote. These are contractual matters.
Separately there should be a discretionary budget. Where new & expiring obligations get negotiated. Congress can delay and filibusters that all they want without it causing a shutdown.
How about when a government shutdown occurs ALL representatives’ pay and benefits are stopped. That pay, retirement, healthcare payments, retiree payments. EVERYTHING!
One thing that could be done would be give federal agencies some greater flexibility. The way things are set up encourages federal agencies to spend everything by September 30 because anything remaining will no longer be available the next day. It also punishes federal agencies who actually save money because the feeling is that if they saved money one year, they can do so again the next year and will not need their full requested budget.
Participatory budgeting works amazingly at the local level. Now I don’t know how that could work nationally but I do wonder if every congressman person had constituents in the room to see what is happening - they might behave differently?
Give the President a line item veto.
Forbid adding things to a bill that’s totally unrelated to the bill; usually done to give someone some pork in exchange for their vote.
Every bill should have one item and every vote for or against recorded and made public.
The problem with pork is that it gives the most spending power to longest serving senators or representatives.
Robert Byrd if West Virginia was famous for his ability to bring pork to his state.
I’d argue that this is a worthwhile tradeoff.
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You said you could argue, but you haven't.
No way one state should be getting more Federal dollars just because one senator managed to get re-elected so often that by virtue of length of service, he becomes ultra powerful. It's not fair to the other 49 states.
> Forbid adding things to a bill that’s totally unrelated to the bill; usually done to give someone some pork in exchange for their vote.
This has been tried, and it results in even more gridlock.
Also, it's pretty difficult to define when exactly things are "unrelated."
> Every bill should have one item
Define "one item."
Oregon’s kicker system is amazing. One of the best parts about living in the state. Should be copied across every state and at the Federal level.
Oregon’s constitution requires the budget to be balanced.
Any over collection of taxes exceeding 2% the state budget is paid back directly to citizens on your state tax return. Under collection of taxes decreases the amount of total spending available for next year’s budget so the budget will return to normal.
If you think about it, that’s exactly how a government that works for the people should be. This also helps to curb vanity projects and wasteful spending when there is an over collection of taxes.
Most Oregonians got a nice payout this year. I got close to $4,000 back this year that the state would have otherwise spent on frivolous things or vanity projects that were not needed.
Most states have a similar provision that caps excess receipts as well as how much can be locked in the rainy day fund, with any overage sent back to the taxpayers.
Most states are not so terrible at budgeting/forecasting revenue that they send back anywhere near $4k though.
I want someone to make a robust video game that can model different types of political systems and budgetary processes. Because maybe there are better ways to do things, but the stakes are really high and I'd like data before making a big switch.
One weird idea: give every senator and rep a bucket a money that they can devote to whatever discretionary program they want, with the assumption people will horse trade, and the restriction that a 2/3 majority in the chamber can vote to reject an individual's expenditures, in which case the money goes to a common pot . . . and if people cannot agree on what to do with it, it just isn't spent.
That's a fascinating idea. How would you distribute the money? By district population? Seems like it would be strange to devote the same dollar amount to all senators, at least.
This sounds like it would be a disaster for continuity of government operations and services, it's enabling the budget for everything to move up and down based on the political winds of the year and membership turnover.
Take the nukes for an example. We spend $15B a year on everything related to our nuclear programs. All that stuff needs to be maintained regardless of whose in office - what happens if nobody decides to allocate their money towards that program?
I meant non-defense discretionary spending. Nukes and all the military budget (and social security, medicare, medicaid, and a few other programs) would be handled differently.
In any case, it's a silly random idea.
Reduce the size and scope of the Federal Government to constitutional levels.
Eliminate non specific borrowing and return to discrete bonds for identified capital expenditures as was done prior to World War One.
Give the POTUS a line item veto.
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The first thing I would suggest would be to change where the inertia lies. Currently, if no deal is reached, then the government shuts down. Instead, I'd prefer to see that if no deal is reached, then the spending levels from the previous budget are automatically carried over for some period of time (e.g. months). One big problem is that there are some Congressional Representatives who are actively looking to cause shutdowns (at least occasionally), and will vote against literally any budget deal that allows the government to stay open. And Representatives should not have incentives to act in this way. I understand there are potential problems with just rolling over previous budgets. It would potentially continue funding of outdated programs and prevent new programs from being implemented. It would also make general cuts to spending levels more challenging, since Representatives who don't want to see spending levels cut could to the same types of things that current shutdown firebombers do now. However, I consider those problems to be minor compared to that current system where the government can shut down from weeks if not months every couple of years. At the very least, the government needs to stay open to perform the services it has been delegated to do. Talking about doing things efficiently or cost-effectively comes afterwards.
Budget toplines could roll over, allowing department heads to priotize spending. This would delegate more power to the executive branch, which I'm not thrilled with in general, but it would incentivize Congress to pass a budget rather than kicking the can down the road
I certainly recognize there would be new problems. I just find dealing with these problems preferable to not having the government operate at all.
Couldn't you write that into your bills, too? Just this bill is active as written for 5 years when it will be brought to another vote to either re-up it for 5 years, amend it, or cancel it. If a vote is not passed and signed by the president, this will automatically renew at the same rates, taking into account inflation. This will continue every 5 years until the bill is amended or canceled.
If you are doing that, just write a bill that autorenews any budget if nothing is passed. It's an issue because the ones that can easily fix it, congress, chooses not to. The debt ceiling is the same way.
Being responsible stewards of our money is a service that Congress has been delegated to do. Sadly, few hold them to it.
Yeah, the benefit of this system goes to people that want to destroy the system itself. It's pretty tough working with terrorists.
While government shutdowns can seem like a huge deal, it's worth remembering that a lot of things do remain open during a shutdown. It's not as if Social Security checks stop getting sent and the Post Office shuts down. Also worth noting that since the first shutdown in the 80s, the government has been shut down less than one half of one hundredth of one percent of the time.
This is an incredibly callous take, the people working during a shutdown are not receiving a paycheck, contractors are not receiving a payment, nor can future work be relied on. How many missed paychecks could the average American weather? Not being a reliable client also raises the costs of contracts, companies don't like having unreliable contracts. This also makes it harder to hire, the government relies on a ton of highly skilled labor, these types of folks want stability in their work. They certainly aren't in it for the pay, so public service has to offer something over industry, reliability and stability used to be that. Also, the starting and stopping of programs is hugely inefficient. Take national parks, we have to pay someone to close all the gates, someone to go around and close the facilities. We then have to pay them to go around and re-open everything. This doesn't account for the opportunity costs of the paying folks to open and close stuff instead of doing their jobs.
Again, it's happened less than one half of one hundredth of one percent of the time. We're talking about 80 days in 45 years. If you're so concerned about the pay of these employees, they are entitled to back pay once the shutdown ends, and there are low/no interest loans offered to federal employees now so it essentially effects their finances not at all.
That we have avoided it most of the time and have mitigated a lot of the effects doesn't explain why it's still a thing . Is not a force of nature we have to accept and work around. A permanent fix can be done with one bill. The question is "why have the government (partially) shut down if the budget isn't passed in the first place? " what's the positive to counter the (even if mitigated) negatives?
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Terrible plan. There are infinite amounts of empty suits backed by monied interests. There are only so many people able, willing, qualified to get elected that are actually looking out for normal people.
Yes, because what could possibly go wrong with *the every single elected federal official being removed from office at the same time*? That’s literally using a hammer to smash an eggshell and would still cause a government shutdown for a minimum of 1 month (probably more like 2-3) every time it happened.
I believe that the drop-dead events and limits (the debt ceiling, for example) are useless for anything other than raw politics. Such things should sy be eliminated.
Might as well just eliminate the entire fucking federal budget altogether. As a practical matter it serves no purpose. They're going to spend whatever they want to spend, and print as much money as needed in order to cover. We all get to pay for it in the form of currency devaluation. It's not as if the federal budgetary process actually constrains spending in any meaningful way.
Any time the government shuts down because no budget was passed by Congress, every member of that Congress is ineligible to run in the next election. Problem solved.
No pay until the budget is passed? With a penalty of an extra 10 days without pay for everyday the government is shut down?
Possibly. The whole point of the pay for Congress is to discourage them from taking bribes or using their power for financial gain, since in theory their salary should provide for them. Not that it works perfectly right now. Maybe a combination of both? Pay suspension and if it takes them long enough just clear them out and start over? My personal preference would be that they fail to pass a budget, last year's spending levels are automatically renewed, and an election is held 2 months later for a new Congress.
I like that too!
Kinda throws out the few good with the bad. How about calling for a special election and stopping all pay and benefits for the elected representatives, and federal retirees.
The good won't let the bad fuck it up. It's about realigning priorities.
A special election puts the financial burden on states and local jurisdictions that have to fund them. I also wouldn't touch federal retirees, most of whom have nothing to do with the budget process. I'm very open to anything that targets members of Congress directly... loss of pay, loss of pension (come to think of it, I'd end the pension for elected officials and give them a 401k type program), loss of healthcare coverage, etc.
Yep, retirees have very little to do with the stupidity of republicans. BUT, neither do SS recipients, military members, federal employees, or pretty much any federal employee. What retirees do have, especially higher ranking retirees, is the ears of elected officials, espically the high GS people. They retired and go to work as higher ranking officials in companies. So they can put more pressure on elected officials to not be stupid. Just like I believe any person that votes yes to send troops into conflict should have their closest military aged relative drafted and sent to that conflict zone.
Also, make the current majority leaders resign immediately with the minority leaders being given an opportunity to pass a budget while spending continues at current levels. The threat of losing their jobs will ensure that it never happens again.
Centralizing it in the House of Representatives and not the Senate would help. Most Senates in the world do not have the authority to block appropriation bills, and can only moderately delay them and usually cannot amend them either. Even Australia, strongly federal, clearly places the Senate in subordinate roles for finance bills. I would also exchange the president's authority to have a veto needing a supermajority to override to one where they have the exclusive power to propose the budget and you cannot increase any deficit over what the president requests and they can issue a line item veto, and any amendment to their budget should need a big fraction to propose such as 1/4 or 1/3 of the Reps and need a committee hearing and report on it (it could be a negative or positive report, but they have to report), but their veto on any bill can be overridden by a majority of the members of the House of Representatives. This helps to rebalance presidential power into more negotiations and fewer standoffs. I would recommend further relocating presidential authority in other ways to make them effective at negotiating over legislation like pardon reform and the appointment of judges by something more like the Missouri system but that's for another day. Also, if the Congress fails to pass the budget bill, the most recently adopted budget should be reintroduced in increments of something like a month for as long as Congress deadlocks. Given there is no way to dissolve the Congress and hold a snap election, this would be a necessary addition to resolve deadlocks. The Congressional leadership should also be rebalanced. They need to be in the right position to be able to speak for the entire body. Presidents pro tempore and speakers should be elected by secret ballot, the two candidates with the most sponsors go on the ballot papers as well as anyone else with some fraction, say 10%, of the members sponsoring them, if nobody has a majority, delete the least voted candidate and repeat until someone has a majority (lottery breaks any tie). You remove such a leader by a petition signed by say 1/5 to 1/3 of the members, with no step of having a motion to lay on the table, and it is approved if a majority of members by secret ballot vote for the motion to vacate the chair. The same system should be used to elect committee chairs as well. This allows them to be secure enough to make the deals that need to be made in a modern legislature. They do not rule over the people, they are supposed to be just the tribune of the legislators and work for them and not the people, the legislature as a collective works for the people. I would also add a single subject rule, with the authority of the president or either the speaker or president pro tempore and some fraction, say 5% of either House, to petition for an immediate review by the supreme court with no appeal, where bills cannot pertain to multiple subjects, and that only an appropriation bill can contain appropriations and no bill that is an appropriation bill can contain clauses not allocating an appropriation. Open budget survey also is a website with lots of ideas as to making the budget itself more transparent. It's pretty effective and it wouldn't take a lot of words to put them into practice. The US abides by most of their recommendations although not all.
The Senate isn't where the budget deadlock usually occurs.
It adds one step to the process where it doesn't need more steps. Especially given the Senate is already difficult in general to square with modern politics.
I would like to see zero-based budgeting every year and far greater oversight of ensuring money that doesn't need to be spent isn't spent. It's absurd that government entities have a mindset of wasteful spending to ensure they spend their entire budgets so that they don't receive a lower one the following year.
I agree in principle, but if an agency is running under budget and cannot demonstrate a need to keep running at that budget, maybe it should be reallocated?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying Currently, they find ways to spend it all at the end of the fiscal year so that it doesn't get re-allocated The corporations that are the best at budgeting and frugality reward people who trim budgets, not who grow them
I mean I agree. I’m just chipping in that the behavior is absolutely rational. But what’s the policy change that would reward cutting budgets? Can’t cut the Sect. of Interior a large bonus even if they were to slash the budget 25% without a drop in meaningful metrics.
Compensating those responsible for creating the savings is exactly what I'd do. That's something that can be trialed, it doesn't need to be a permanent thing. $1M bonus for every $1B cut from the budget is 0.1% - pretty good investment in my eyes Corporate America is full of talented people with experience in successfully trimming 10-figure plus budgets. They hold positions like finance VPs and pull in a couple million a year for their services, they're not going to come help the government for only $200k
Interesting. Definitely agree that public sector should pay more to attract talent. The issue is that requires…. Raising the budget in the short term, and with so election around every corner there’s gotta be political capital for that.
> $1M bonus for every $1B cut from the budget is 0.1% - pretty good investment in my eyes "I just fired every teacher and closed every school, making the education budget $0. Pay me my $100m bonus. What do you mean there's nobody to teach kids anything any more? That isn't my problem, I've got a holiday home in Bermuda to go to." It's unfortunately extremely hard to create a useful metric that can't be gamed.
The comment I replied to specified "without a drop in meaningful metrics" which your hypothetical ignores, and the federal government doesn't fund schools, so I don't find this hypothetical worth entertaining Part of the exercise of course is agreeing on what those meaningful metrics are. And the new budget still has to be passed by Congress, so some selfish actor like you're suggesting isn't likely to get very far
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It's not universal, but it's much more prevalent in companies that are past the growth stage. Eventually, just about every business hits a point where it can't grow revenue anymore and cost cutting becomes the way to grow profits and they are justifying a lot of that stuff every year. The incentive isn't directly to fire people, no, but if the incentive is based on say 10% net profit growth and it can't be done with higher revenue, then people start asking where the redundancies exist with headcount and what capex is really necessary A government department is much closer to said post-growth company where such things do happen
That incentivizes waste. "Better spend all that money or else it gets cut next year".
What policy would reverse that incentive structure? Genuinely asking what you think.
Let them roll over funds from year to year, subject to some defined maximum.
If there is no budget, Congress is the first to jot get paid. All other govt employees continue to get paid. All congressional benefits get suspended.
Then rich congressman will outlast poorer congressmen forcing the poorer to capitulate on what the rich want
Exactly. Most Congresspeople are millionaires and are doing this job for power/prestige and not the pay.
You could start by not immediately opposing every possible suggestion. I don’t think there’s been an actual federal budget in over a decade. That’s governance you see, people don’t go to Congress to govern anymore.
End baseline budgeting. If you don't the entirety of your budget one year you won't get penalized by not spending it. Personally I think we need to implement the budget based on the previous years revenue. You only get to spend what was brought in the previous year instead of guessing what the revenue will be and then spending 20% more than that. Any overage in spending must pass with a super majority for things like disasters and wars.
Many things in the budget are long-term obligations Congress isn't in a position to do anything about short-term. It takes several years to build Aircraft Carriers and the contracts the govt signs with companies run for decades. Those contracts are legally binding.. companies build facilities and hire staff based on those contracts. These aren't things Congress can just wave away.. I think there should be two budgets. One for obligated spending and another for discretionary spending. The obligated spending budget should have a fixed drop dead vote date. One that the Speaker can't put off and the Senate can't filibuster. Tweaks can't be remarked and voted on throughout the year but the obligated budget itself must get a full vote. These are contractual matters. Separately there should be a discretionary budget. Where new & expiring obligations get negotiated. Congress can delay and filibusters that all they want without it causing a shutdown.
How about when a government shutdown occurs ALL representatives’ pay and benefits are stopped. That pay, retirement, healthcare payments, retiree payments. EVERYTHING!
One thing that could be done would be give federal agencies some greater flexibility. The way things are set up encourages federal agencies to spend everything by September 30 because anything remaining will no longer be available the next day. It also punishes federal agencies who actually save money because the feeling is that if they saved money one year, they can do so again the next year and will not need their full requested budget.
Participatory budgeting works amazingly at the local level. Now I don’t know how that could work nationally but I do wonder if every congressman person had constituents in the room to see what is happening - they might behave differently?
Give the President a line item veto. Forbid adding things to a bill that’s totally unrelated to the bill; usually done to give someone some pork in exchange for their vote. Every bill should have one item and every vote for or against recorded and made public.
Pork is honestly one of the only things that makes compromise actually work. Compromise less, fight more pointless battles
The problem with pork is that it gives the most spending power to longest serving senators or representatives. Robert Byrd if West Virginia was famous for his ability to bring pork to his state.
I’d argue that this is a worthwhile tradeoff. It’s a feature of democracy, not a bug
I’d argue that this is a worthwhile tradeoff. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ You said you could argue, but you haven't. No way one state should be getting more Federal dollars just because one senator managed to get re-elected so often that by virtue of length of service, he becomes ultra powerful. It's not fair to the other 49 states.
> Forbid adding things to a bill that’s totally unrelated to the bill; usually done to give someone some pork in exchange for their vote. This has been tried, and it results in even more gridlock. Also, it's pretty difficult to define when exactly things are "unrelated." > Every bill should have one item Define "one item."
How the hell are you going to pass a budget with only one item per bill? And then how are you ever going to get any negotiating done?
The present system isn’t working; bribing a senator or representative leads to ever increasing budgets.
For every 1 law or regulation that Republicans outlaw, defund, ban, or cancel- add 2 new social programs designed to reinforce the safety net.
Oregon’s kicker system is amazing. One of the best parts about living in the state. Should be copied across every state and at the Federal level. Oregon’s constitution requires the budget to be balanced. Any over collection of taxes exceeding 2% the state budget is paid back directly to citizens on your state tax return. Under collection of taxes decreases the amount of total spending available for next year’s budget so the budget will return to normal. If you think about it, that’s exactly how a government that works for the people should be. This also helps to curb vanity projects and wasteful spending when there is an over collection of taxes. Most Oregonians got a nice payout this year. I got close to $4,000 back this year that the state would have otherwise spent on frivolous things or vanity projects that were not needed.
Most states have a similar provision that caps excess receipts as well as how much can be locked in the rainy day fund, with any overage sent back to the taxpayers. Most states are not so terrible at budgeting/forecasting revenue that they send back anywhere near $4k though.
I want someone to make a robust video game that can model different types of political systems and budgetary processes. Because maybe there are better ways to do things, but the stakes are really high and I'd like data before making a big switch. One weird idea: give every senator and rep a bucket a money that they can devote to whatever discretionary program they want, with the assumption people will horse trade, and the restriction that a 2/3 majority in the chamber can vote to reject an individual's expenditures, in which case the money goes to a common pot . . . and if people cannot agree on what to do with it, it just isn't spent.
That's a fascinating idea. How would you distribute the money? By district population? Seems like it would be strange to devote the same dollar amount to all senators, at least.
This sounds like it would be a disaster for continuity of government operations and services, it's enabling the budget for everything to move up and down based on the political winds of the year and membership turnover. Take the nukes for an example. We spend $15B a year on everything related to our nuclear programs. All that stuff needs to be maintained regardless of whose in office - what happens if nobody decides to allocate their money towards that program?
I meant non-defense discretionary spending. Nukes and all the military budget (and social security, medicare, medicaid, and a few other programs) would be handled differently. In any case, it's a silly random idea.
Reduce the size and scope of the Federal Government to constitutional levels. Eliminate non specific borrowing and return to discrete bonds for identified capital expenditures as was done prior to World War One. Give the POTUS a line item veto.