U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

WASHINGTON : 2006 

109th Congress, 2nd Session S. Doc. 109–24 

Committee on the Budget 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

1974–2006 


congress.#13
II 

An Act 

To establish a new congressional budget process; to establish 

Committees on the Budget in each House; to establish a Congressional Budget Office; to establish a procedure providing congressional control over the impoundment of funds by the executive 

branch; and for other purposes. 

—the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 

III 

United States Senate 

Committee on the Budget 

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS 

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire, 

Chairman 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

JIM BUNNING, Kentucky 

MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota, 

Ranking Member 

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota 

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

SCOTT B. GUDES, Majority Staff Director 

MARY ANN NAYLOR, Staff Director 

IV 

V 


28749.041
VII 

Acknowledgments 

The publication of this history benefited from the contributions 

of a number of congressional offices and agencies, including the 

Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress, 

the United States Senate Historical Office, and the Senate Library. 

The United States Senate Committee on the Budget especially 

wishes to acknowledge the outstanding contributions of Robert 

Keith, budget process specialist, and Mary Frances Bley and Jerry 

V. Mansfield, librarians, of CRS; Tara J. Olivero, archivist and historian serving with the Committee; and Lynne Seymour, chief 

clerk of the Committee. This history would not have been possible 

without their significant expertise and effort. 

Integral to the success of this project was Suzanne Kayne of the 

Government Printing Office and Senate Budget Committee senior 

staff Jim Hearn, Lisa Konwinski, John Righter, and Cheri Reidy, 

who provided keen editorial support. 

Finally, the Committee wishes to express appreciation to the 

former professional staff who contributed to the production of this 

history through personal interviews and recollections. These public 

servants served the members of the Senate Budget Committee and 

the Nation with esprit and distinction. Their efforts and accomplishments furthered the field of financial management, and made 

tangible, lasting improvements to the budget of the United States 

Government and the congressional budget process. 

IX 

Introduction 

The following history of the Senate Budget Committee and the 

congressional budget process was created in a bipartisan effort. Significant contributions were made by Committee staff, the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, and the Office 

of the Senate Historian. Several individuals are highlighted in the 

acknowledgments. 

The Budget Committee is one of the Senate’s youngest committees, having been created by the Congressional Budget Act of 

1974. The Committee, the budget resolution and reconciliation 

process, and enforcement authorities were created to enable Congress to create, enforce, and manage the annual Federal budget, including all types of Federal spending and revenues. From the outset under the first chairman and ranking member, Senators Edmund S. Muskie and Peter H. Dominick, the Committee has benefited from effective leadership and membership, and it has been 

supported by an outstanding professional staff. 

One responsibility of the Committee is to facilitate an understanding by the Congress and public of the policies, programs, financial resources, and estimates included in the budget, and how 

the congressional budget process works to enforce the budget blueprint. In that spirit, this history, including excerpts from interviews with former senior staff, is provided. We hope that the public, students, and employees of the three branches of government 

will find this volume informative and useful. 

PREPARED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF 

JUDD GREGG, CHAIRMAN, AND 

KENT CONRAD, RANKING MEMBER 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

109TH CONGRESS 

XI 

Contents 

Page 

Acknowledgments .............................................................................. VII 

Introduction ....................................................................................... IX 

Principal Duties and Functions of the Senate Committee on the 

Budget ........................................................................................... 1 

Concurrent Resolutions on the Budget ...................................... 1 

Reconciliation Legislation .......................................................... 7 

Budget Process Reform Proposals .............................................. 11 

Executive Impoundment Proposals and Impoundment Legislation ........................................................................................ 13 

Oversight of the Congressional Budget Office ........................... 14 

Consideration of the Nomination of the Director and Deputy 

Director of the Office of Management and Budget ................ 16 

History of the Congressional Budget Process and the Senate Committee on the Budget ..................................................................... 19 

Background ................................................................................ 19 

Prelude to the 1974 Reform ...................................................... 24 

The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 

1974 ....................................................................................... 28 

The First Decade: From ‘‘Dry Run’’ to Reconciliation .............. 39 

Coping with Deficits: the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act and 

Related Laws .......................................................................... 47 

Moving Toward Balance: Budget Enforcement Laws in the 

1990s and the Emergence of Surpluses .................................. 52 

Congressional Budgeting in the 21st Century ........................... 60 

Staff Recollections .............................................................................. 71 

Beginnings ................................................................................. 73 

People and Structure .......................................................... 73 

Carroll Arms ...................................................................... 74 

XII 

Page 

Sid Brown (the Committee’s First Chief of Budget Review) .............................................................................. 75 

Technology ......................................................................... 75 

Markups, Resolutions, and the Senate Floor .............................. 76 

Tests of Budget Enforcement ..................................................... 80 

Committee Dynamics ................................................................. 82 

Interaction with the Senate Leadership and the Executive 

Branch .................................................................................... 83 

Reconciliation ............................................................................ 86 

Gramm-Rudman-Hollings (GRH) ............................................. 90 

Post-GRH Budget Agreements ................................................. 92 

1987 Agreements: Omnibus Reconciliation (OBRA) and 

Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Reaffirmation Act ................................................................. 92 

1989 Agreement: OBRA ................................................... 93 

1990 Agreements: Budget Enforcement Act, Andrews Air 

Force Base Summit ........................................................ 94 

1993 Agreement: OBRA ................................................... 96 

1997 Agreement: Balanced Budget Act ............................ 97 

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ................................... 98 

Contemporary Budgeting ........................................................... 99 

Reflections on the Budget Process and Committee Successes 

and Challenges ....................................................................... 102 

Leadership and Membership of the Senate Committee on the Budget 109 

Listing of Chairmen and Ranking Members .............................. 109 

Biographies of Chairmen and Ranking Members ....................... 111 

Edmund S. Muskie, Maine ................................................. 111 

Peter H. Dominick, Colorado ............................................ 113 

Henry Bellmon, Oklahoma ................................................ 115 

Ernest F. Hollings, South Carolina .................................... 117 

Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico ........................................ 119 

Lawton Chiles, Florida ....................................................... 121 

Jim Sasser, Tennessee ......................................................... 123 

J. James Exon, Nebraska .................................................... 125 

Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey ...................................... 127 

Kent Conrad, North Dakota .............................................. 129 

XIII 

Page 

Don Nickles, Oklahoma .................................................... 131 

Judd Gregg, New Hampshire ............................................ 133 

Committee Members Who Have Served in Other Elective or 

Appointive Positions .............................................................. 135 

Membership of the Committee by Congress .............................. 137 

Membership of the Committee by State .................................... 147 

Alphabetical Listing of Members of the Committee .................. 155 

Majority Staff Directors to the Committee ................................ 159 

Minority Staff Directors to the Committee ................................ 160 

Majority Counsels to the Committee ......................................... 161 

Minority Counsels to the Committee ......................................... 162 

Chief Clerks to the Committee .................................................. 163 

Authorities Pertaining to the Jurisdiction and Duties of the Senate 

Committee on the Budget ............................................................. 165 

Statutory Provisions ................................................................... 165 

Senate Rule XXV, Paragraph (e) ............................................... 167 

S. Res. 445 (108th Congress) ..................................................... 168 

Standing Order on the Referral of Budget Process Legislation 

(1977) .................................................................................... 169 

S. Res. 45 (94th Congress) ......................................................... 170 

Committee Rules of Procedure .................................................. 171 

Legislation Developed by the Senate Committee on the Budget ....... 172 

Concurrent Resolutions on the Budget: Fiscal Years 1976– 

2007 ....................................................................................... 172 

Budget Reconciliation Acts ....................................................... 173 

Other Significant Legislation Enacted Into Law ........................ 175 

Glossary of Budget Terms ................................................................. 179 

Bibliography ...................................................................................... 185 

Appendix ........................................................................................... 189 

Opening Statements from First Committee Hearing, August 

14, 1974 ................................................................................ 189 

Flow Chart of the Budget and Appropriations Process .............. 192 

1 

Principal Duties and Functions of the Senate 

Committee on the Budget 

The principal duties and functions of the Senate Committee on 

the Budget are set forth in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (the 1974 Act), the Standing 

Rules of the Senate, and other authorities (these authorities are 

identified and discussed in more detail in a later section). Over the 

years, the Committee’s duties and functions have been modified or 

supplemented through the enactment of amendments to the 1974 

Act, the enactment of new laws, the inclusion of procedural features in annual budget resolutions, changes in Senate rules, and 

through other means. 

In brief, the Senate Committee on the Budget’s principal duties 

and functions include: (1) the development and enforcement each 

year of a concurrent resolution on the budget, which serves as a 

framework for subsequent congressional action on spending, revenue, and debt-limit legislation; (2) when the Committee so determines, the initiation and enforcement of the budget reconciliation 

process, which involves changing existing law through reconciliation legislation to bring spending, revenue, or debt-limit levels 

into conformity with budget resolution assumptions; (3) the development and implementation of budget process reform legislation; 

(4) the review of the broad economic and budgetary implications 

of executive impoundment proposals and compliance with impoundment control procedures; (5) the oversight of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO); and (6) the consideration of the nomination of the Director and Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). These duties and functions are discussed in more detail below. 

Concurrent Resolutions on the Budget 

Section 301 (2 U.S.C. 632) of the 1974 Act requires Congress, 

by April 15 of each year, to complete action on a concurrent resolution on the budget for the fiscal year beginning on October 1 

of that year. The central purpose of a budget resolution is to set 

a blueprint for the overall fiscal and budgetary policy and to establish a framework for the subsequent consideration of spending, revenue, and debt-limit legislation during the session (and into the 

2 

following session). The 1974 Act did not dictate that Congress annually approve a particular fiscal and budgetary policy (such as a 

balanced budget or restrictive/stimulative fiscal policy), but relies 

on the House and Senate to determine the appropriate mix of 

budget policies each year. Budget resolutions and other budgetary 

legislation are considered under a timetable set forth in Section 

300 (2 U.S.C. 631) of the 1974 Act. The timetable is meant to 

help coordinate the various congressional actions needed to implement annual fiscal and budgetary policy. 

In times of weak economic growth or recession, the fiscal policy 

reflected in the budget resolution may be expansionary, recommending revenue reductions, spending increases, or a combination 

of the two to spur the economy. When economic conditions 

change, the fiscal policy underlying the budget resolution may be 

adjusted or reversed, calling instead for revenue increases, spending 

reductions, or both. As a consequence of adopting different fiscal 

policies and economic goals for different circumstances, the budget 

resolution may project deficits in some years and surpluses in others. 

Furthermore, the budget resolution reflects changing national 

priorities. Spending for national defense, for example, may surge 

relative to nondefense spending during times of war, but constrict 

when conflict is ended. Spending for health care and income security, as another example, may accelerate more quickly compared to 

other domestic spending as the population ages. 

Concurrent resolutions, unlike bills or joint resolutions, are not 

sent to the President for his approval and do not become law. Instead, they represent the mutual agreement of the Senate and 

House of Representatives. In order to implement the fiscal and 

budgetary policy goals embodied in a budget resolution, Congress 

and the President must enact spending, revenue, and debt-limit 

legislation into law. 

In the case of budget resolutions, each Chamber originates its 

own concurrent resolution (as an S. Con. Res. or an H. Con. Res.). 

Through the late 1980s, the Senate and House alternated in the 

use of Senate and House concurrent resolutions as the final legislative vehicle for budget resolutions, but since then they have used 

House concurrent resolutions as the final vehicle in every instance 

of a conference report that was agreed to by both bodies. 

The 1974 Act originally required that the Senate and House 

adopt two budget resolutions each year—an advisory budget resolution in the spring (by May 15) and a binding budget resolution 

in the fall (by September 15). Congress adopted the second required budget resolution from FY1976 through FY1982. For the 

following several years, through FY1986, Congress did not adopt 

3 

a second budget resolution; instead it relied on a feature in the 

first budget resolution that automatically deemed it to be the second budget resolution on October 1 if a second budget resolution 

had not been adopted by that date. In 1985, Congress amended 

the 1974 Act to require only a single budget resolution each year, 

in the spring, and advanced its due date by 1 month, to April 

15; this change first took effect for FY1987. 

Section 304 (2 U.S.C. 635) of the Act allows Congress to adopt 

a revised budget resolution at any time. Only once did Congress 

adopt a third budget resolution (FY1977). After Congress stopped 

using second budget resolutions (FY1982), whenever it wanted to 

make revisions in the budget resolution levels for the current year, 

it did so in the budget resolution for the following fiscal year. 

The budget resolution has several required elements, as set forth 

in Section 301 of the Act, encompassing ‘‘budget aggregates,’’ 

functional allocations of spending, and, for Senate enforcement 

purposes only, revenue and outlay levels of the off-budget Social 

Security trust funds. 

First, the resolution must set forth the following ‘‘budget aggregates’’ for each fiscal year covered: 

• total on-budget spending, in the form of both new budget 

authority (which provides legal authority for agencies to incur 

financial obligations) and outlays (which represents payments 

from the Treasury Department, usually in the form of electronic fund transfers or checks issued, to liquidate obligations); 

• total on-budget revenues (which involves income to the Federal Government from such sources as individual and corporate income taxes, social insurance taxes, excise taxes and 

tariffs), and the amount by which revenues should be increased or decreased through legislative action; 

• the on-budget surplus (an excess of revenues over outlays) or 

the deficit (an excess of outlays over revenues); and 

• the public debt (which corresponds to the statutory level of 

debt, owed both to the public and to certain Federal trust 

funds, that would be necessary to accommodate the levels of 

spending and revenues assumed in the budget resolution). 

Second, the budget resolution is required to set forth the 

amounts of new budget authority and outlays for each major functional category. Although the 1974 Act does not define the term 

‘‘major functional category,’’ the current practice followed by Congress is to include 20 functional categories of the budget, covering 

such categories as National Defense (050), International Affairs 

(150), Energy (270), Agriculture (350), Transportation (400), 

Health (550) and Income Security (600). 

4 

Finally, the transactions of off-budget entities, which presently 

include the two Social Security trust funds (the Federal Old-Age 

and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund) and the operations of the Postal Service, are 

not reflected in the aggregates and the functional allocations of 

spending in the budget resolution. For purposes of a Senate-only 

point of order intended to prevent legislative action that would 

erode the long-range balances in the Social Security trust funds, 

the budget resolution must also include revenue and outlay levels 

for those two funds. 

Section 301 also specifies several optional elements that may be 

included in a budget resolution and affords additional flexibility 

in budget resolution content by means of an ‘‘elastic clause’’ in 

Section 301(b)(4). The clause stipulates that a budget resolution 

may ‘‘set forth such other matters, and require such other procedures, relating to the budget, as may be appropriate to carry out 

the purposes of this Act.’’ 

Development of the annual budget resolution is the responsibility of the Senate and House Budget Committees. Each year, the 

process followed by the Senate Budget Committee (which is similar to the process followed by the House Budget Committee) begins when it receives an annual report from CBO, usually in late 

January, on the budget and economic outlook, which, since 1996, 

covers the next 10 years (including baseline budget projections 

that estimate future spending and revenue levels without any policy changes) and the President submits his budget to Congress, 

which is due no later than the first Monday in February. The 

Committee then holds hearings to solicit testimony from witnesses 

such as the Treasury Secretary, the Director of OMB, the Director 

of CBO, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Cabinet secretaries, among others. 

In addition to the initial CBO report on the budget and economic outlook, which is updated later in the session, the Committee receives CBO reports on other budget topics, including options for savings; annual reports on unauthorized appropriations 

and expiring authorizations, which are distributed to all committees; and CBO’s analysis of the President’s budget, which is prepared at the request of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The 

Budget Committee also receives statements, as provided for under 

Section 301, from the other Senate committees presenting their 

views and estimates on budget matters within their jurisdiction. 

5 

 2001, The Washington Post. Photo by Ray Lustig. Reprinted with Permission. 

Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan at his 17th appearance 

before the Senate Budget Committee in 2001. 

The Senate Budget Committee marks up the budget resolution 

in open session generally in the same manner that other Senate 

committees mark up legislation. The markup usually proceeds 

with a Chairman’s Mark, which is open to the offering of amendments. Following the consideration of all amendments and motions, the Budget Committee votes on ordering the budget resolution reported. A reported budget resolution may or may not be 

accompanied by a written report; when a written report is not 

issued, the Budget Committee usually issues a committee print in 

lieu of a report to explain its recommendations. 

The chairman of the Budget Committee manages consideration 

of the budget resolution on the Senate floor, and heads the delegation of Senators appointed to a conference committee with Members from the House. The chairman also manages consideration of 

the conference report on the Senate floor and any other motions 

necessary to bring the Senate and House into final agreement on 

the measure. 

Most legislation considered in the Senate is not subject to debate limitations or restrictions on the subject matter of amendments; Senators may debate such legislation at length, even engaging in extended debate or a filibuster, and offer non-germane 


28749.034
6 

amendments dealing with topics other than those encompassed by 

the underlying measure. Even the issue of whether to take up legislation for consideration, as reflected in the motion to proceed to 

the consideration of a measure, generally may be debated at 

length. 

The consideration of a budget resolution, on the other hand, is 

governed by expedited procedures set forth in Section 305 (2 

U.S.C. 636) of the 1974 Act and under Senate precedents. First, 

the motion to proceed to the consideration of a budget resolution 

is not debatable. Second, the time for debate on a budget resolution is limited to 50 hours and is divided equally between the majority and minority. (While the 50-hour limitation includes time 

spent debating amendments, motions, and appeals, and time spent 

in quorum calls, it does not include time spent on roll call votes 

or on quorum calls immediately preceding a vote.) Additional time 

limits apply to the debate on amendments, motions, and appeals. 

A 10-hour limitation on debate applies to the consideration of 

conference reports on budget resolutions, and a 15-hour limitation 

applies to revised budget resolutions. Third, amendments offered 

from the floor must be germane. Other expediting procedures 

apply as well. 

Under the timetable of the congressional budget process (see 

table 1), the House and Senate are scheduled to reach final agreement on the budget resolution by April 15 (as previously mentioned, the deadline originally was set as May 15, but was moved 

forward beginning with FY1987). In practice, the budget resolution often is not agreed to until after the deadline. Because the 

deadline was established under the rulemaking authority of the 

House and Senate, no legal consequences ensue if congressional action is not completed by that time. 

The Budget Committee also plays a crucial role with respect to 

enforcing the parameters of the current budget resolution and the 

requirements under the 1974 Act and other authorities, when legislation is considered by the Senate. Enforcement relies upon the 

reconciliation process (discussed below), points of order, and the 

dissemination of ‘‘scorekeeping’’ data and other information. 

Various points of order are available under the 1974 Act, as 

well as procedural features included in budget resolutions under 

authority of the elastic clause and other authorities, which may 

make it more difficult to consider and enact measures, amendments, conference reports, or motions that violate budgetary parameters or requirements. Under Section 312 (2 U.S.C. 643) of the 

1974 Act, the chairman of the Budget Committee advises the Presiding Officer of the Senate as to the budgetary impacts associated 

with legislation subject to a point of order. 

7 

TABLE 1.—TIMETABLE OF THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET PROCESS (SECTION 300 OF THE 

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET ACT OF 1974) 

On or before Action to be completed 

First Monday in February ...... President submits his budget. 

February 15 ......................... Congressional Budget Office submits report to Budget Committees. 

Not later than 6 weeks 

after President submits 

budget.

Committees submit views and estimates to Budget Committees. 

April 1 ................................. Senate Budget Committee reports concurrent resolution on the 

budget. 

April 15 ............................... Congress completes action on concurrent resolution on the budget. 

May 15 ................................ Annual appropriation bills may be considered in the House. 

June 10 ................................ House Appropriations Committee reports last annual appropriation bill. 

June 15 ................................ Congress completes action on reconciliation legislation. 

June 30 ................................ House completes action on annual appropriation bills. 

October 1 ............................. Fiscal year begins. 

As part of a broad scorekeeping process under Section 308 (2 

U.S.C. 639) of the 1974 Act, the Budget Committee integrates 

information on the costs of legislation, as estimated by CBO (for 

spending measures) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) 

(for revenue measures), into a complete tally so that the status of 

spending and revenue levels under the current budget resolution 

may be evaluated at any time. (The requirement that revenue estimates of the JCT be used for these purposes is set forth in Section 

201(f) (2 U.S.C. 601(f)) of the 1974 Act.) The chairman of the 

Budget Committee inserts scorekeeping reports into the Congressional Record periodically to apprise Members of the current levels 

of spending and revenues, and the amounts still available for legislative action under budget resolution assumptions. 

Finally, the chairman of the Budget Committee notifies the Senate from time to time regarding adjustments made to budget resolution levels, as prescribed by Section 314 (2 U.S.C. 645) of the 

1974 Act, or pursuant to authority under reserve funds or other 

procedural elements contained in budget resolutions. 

Reconciliation Legislation 

A budget resolution typically reflects many different assumptions regarding legislative action expected to occur during a session that would cause revenue and spending levels to be changed 

from baseline amounts. (The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 

8 

classified Federal spending into two types—discretionary spending, 

which is controlled in annual appropriation acts; and direct spending, which is controlled in authorizing legislation and often is 

used to fund entitlement programs, such as Medicare, unemployment compensation, and Federal retirement.) Most revenue collections and direct spending, however, occurs automatically each year 

under permanent law; therefore, if the committees with jurisdiction over the revenue and direct spending programs do not report 

legislation to carry out the budget resolution policies by amending 

existing law, revenue and direct spending for these programs likely 

will continue without change from baseline projections. 

The budget reconciliation process is an optional procedure, authorized under Section 310 (2 U.S.C. 641) of the 1974 Act, that 

operates as an adjunct to the budget resolution process. The reconciliation process enhances Congress’s ability to change current 

law in order to bring revenue, spending, and debt-limit levels into 

conformity with the assumptions of the budget resolution. Discretionary spending levels can be addressed each year as Congress 

considers the annual appropriations acts; consequently, the reconciliation process focuses principally on direct spending and revenue levels. 

Reconciliation is a two-stage process. First, reconciliation instructions are included in the budget resolution, directing the appropriate committees to develop legislation achieving the desired 

budgetary outcomes. Reconciliation instructions take the form of 

numerical targets and are not program-specific. If the budget resolution instructs more than one committee in a Chamber, then the 

instructed committees submit their legislative recommendations to 

their respective Budget Committees by the deadline prescribed in 

the budget resolution. The Budget Committees incorporate the 

submissions into an omnibus budget reconciliation bill (see table 

2) without making any substantive revisions. In cases where only 

one committee has been instructed, the process allows that committee to report its reconciliation legislation directly to its parent 

Chamber, thus bypassing the Budget Committee. 

The second step involves consideration of the resultant reconciliation legislation by the House and Senate under expedited procedures. As indicated previously, when the Senate considers most 

legislation, any Senator may speak at length (including engaging 

in a filibuster), and Senators may offer amendments that are not 

germane. Under reconciliation procedures, however, debate in the 

Senate on any reconciliation measure is limited to 20 hours (and 

10 hours on a conference report), and amendments must be germane and not include extraneous matter. In the House, the Rules 

Committee typically recommends a special rule for the considerVerDate jan 13 2004 11:54 May 09, 2007 Jkt 028749 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 5935 Sfmt 5935 C:\DOCS\BUDGET\28749.TXT CRS1 PsN: SKAYNE
9 

ation of a reconciliation measure that places restrictions on debate 

time and the offering of amendments. 

In some years, budget resolutions include reconciliation instructions that afford the House and Senate the option of considering 

two or more types of reconciliation measures. Under current Senate 

practices, there can be only one revenue reconciliation measure, 

one spending reconciliation measure, and one debt-limit reconciliation measure, or some combination thereof. 

TABLE 2.—SELECTED RECONCILIATION ACTS 

Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1980 

P.L. 96–499 (December 5, 1980) 

This Act was the first reconciliation measure to be passed by the House and Senate. As 

signed into law by President Carter, the Act reduced the FY1981 deficit by about $9 billion, 

split roughly between spending reductions (including reductions in discretionary appropriations) and revenue increases. 

Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 

P.L. 97–35 (August 13, 1981) 

President Reagan used this Act, as well as a tax-cut bill considered outside of the reconciliation process, to advance much of his legislative agenda in his first year in office. The 

Act represented a significant expansion of the reconciliation process—the 3-year savings 

associated with the Act amounted to $130 billion, and many extraneous provisions were included. The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (P.L. 97–34) reduced revenues by $282 billion over 3 years. 

Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 

P.L. 101–508 (November 5, 1990) 

After a lengthy budget summit at Andrews Air Force Base, Congress sent President 

George H.W. Bush a bill reducing the deficit by $482 billion over 5 years, including $158 

billion in revenue increases and $324 billion in spending cuts and debt service savings. The 

Act also included the Budget Enforcement Act, which established caps on appropriations 

and a pay-as-you-go (paygo) requirement. 

Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 

P.L. 103–66 (August 10, 1993) 

This reconciliation measure, signed into law by President Clinton during his first year in 

office, reduced the deficit by $496 billion over 5 years, including $241 billion in revenue increases and $255 billion in spending cuts and debt service savings. Additionally, it extended the statutory caps on appropriations and the paygo requirement through FY1998. 

Balanced Budget Act of 1995 

H.R. 2491 

This reconciliation measure included policies to reduce the deficit by $363 billion over 7 

years (1996–2002), including $577 billion in spending cuts and $214 billion in tax relief. 

The bill was vetoed by President Clinton on December 6, 1995. 

10 

TABLE 2.—SELECTED RECONCILIATION ACTS—Continued 

Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 

P.L. 105–33 (August 5, 1997) and P.L. 105–34 (August 5, 1997) 

Taken together, these two reconciliation acts reduced the deficit by $118 billion over 5 

years, including spending cuts and debt service savings of $198 billion and $80 billion in 

revenue reductions. They represent one of three instances in which two separate reconciliation acts were enacted pursuant to a single budget resolution—the other two instances 

occurred in 1982 and 2005 (carrying over into 2006). The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 extended the statutory caps on appropriations and the paygo requirement though FY2002. 

Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 

P.L. 107–16 (June 7, 2001) 

Public Law 107–16 was signed by President George W. Bush and reduced revenues significantly; revenue reductions, together with outlay increases for refundable tax credits, reduced the projected surplus by $1.349 trillion over FY2001–FY2011. The tax cuts in the Act 

were scheduled to sunset in no more than 10 years in order to comply with the Senate’s 

‘‘Byrd rule’’ against extraneous matter in reconciliation legislation (Section 313 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974). 

Once the reconciliation legislation called for in the budget resolution has been approved or vetoed by the President, the process 

is concluded. Congress cannot develop another reconciliation bill 

in the wake of a veto without first adopting another budget resolution containing reconciliation instructions. On occasion, such as 

under the budget resolution for FY2006, final action on reconciliation legislation was not completed until the following session. 

As an optional procedure, reconciliation has not been used in 

every year that the congressional budget process has been in effect. 

Beginning with the first use of reconciliation by both the House 

and Senate in 1980, however, reconciliation has been used in most 

years. Congress has sent the President 21 reconciliation measures 

over the years; 18 were signed into law and 3 were vetoed (and 

the vetoes were not overridden). 

A special reconciliation process, applicable only in the Senate, 

was established as Section 258C (2 U.S.C. 907d) of the Balanced 

Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. The purpose 

of the process was to enable the Senate to quickly pass an alternate 

deficit-reduction measure whenever a sequestration report from the 

OMB Director indicated that a sequester under the pay-as-you-go 

requirement or the deficit targets otherwise would be necessary. 

The Senate never used the special reconciliation process under Section 258C. 

11 

1 For many years, the Senate Budget Committee shared jurisdiction over the Federal budget process with the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (the predecessor to the Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs Committee) under the terms of a standing order reached by unanimous 

consent in 1977. In 2004, the Senate adopted S. Res. 445, which consolidated jurisdiction over 

the Federal budget process in the Budget Committee. These authorities pertaining to the jurisdiction of the Budget Committee are discussed in more detail in a later section of this document. 

Budget Process Reform Proposals 

Each Congress, legislation is introduced on a wide variety of 

budget process reform proposals and referred to the Budget Committee. The Budget Committee’s jurisdiction over budget process 

matters is established by the 1974 Act, Senate Rule XXV, and especially S. Res. 445, which the Senate agreed to on October 9, 

2004.1

Courtesy of the U.S. Senate Photography Studio. 

Chairman Judd Gregg, Ranking Member Kent Conrad, Committee members, 

and staff during the markup for the Stop Over Spending Act of 2006. The Act 

proposed measures to reform the budget process. 

Some budget process reform legislation is comprehensive in 

scope, while other such legislation is targeted toward particular 

issues. During the 109th Congress, for example, legislation was introduced and referred to the Budget Committee dealing with such 

specific matters as biennial budgeting, line-item veto, a Social Security lockbox, emergency reserve funds, pay-as-you-go procedures, 

and a Federal commission to examine proposals dealing with longterm budgetary challenges, as well as comprehensive legislation 

dealing with several of these matters, and more, in a single bill. 


28749.038
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The Budget Committee often works closely with other Senate 

committees on legislation including budget process reforms because of the significant range of issues that may be involved. In 

addition to the Budget Committee, which exercises jurisdiction 

over the Federal budget process, the Rules and Administration 

Committee has jurisdiction over the Standing Rules of the Senate, 

the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has 

jurisdiction over Federal accounting and management laws, and 

the Appropriations Committee has significant jurisdiction over impoundments proposed by the President. Further, the Senate may 

decide to include budget process reforms in legislation dealing 

with other, unrelated subjects. Legislation increasing the public 

debt limit (which is under the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee), for example, has been the vehicle in the past for important changes in the budget process. Other significant changes in 

the budget process have been included in omnibus reconciliation 

legislation. 

Examples of past budget process reforms that have been enacted 

into law, and in which the Budget Committee was involved extensively, include, among others: (1) the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (also known as the GrammRudman-Hollings Act); (2) the Balanced Budget and Emergency 

Deficit Control Reaffirmation Act of 1987; (3) the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990; (4) budget process provisions in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993; (5) the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995; (6) the Line Item Veto Act (1996); and 

(7) the Budget Enforcement Act of 1997. A more detailed listing 

of budget process reform legislation is provided in a later section 

of this document. 

The Budget Committee’s jurisdiction over budget process reform proposals is protected by Section 306 (2 U.S.C. 637) of the 

1974 Act. Under Section 306, no measure or motion dealing with 

matters under the Budget Committee’s jurisdiction may be considered unless it has been reported by, or discharged from, the Committee (unless it is an amendment to such a measure). The prohibition is enforceable by a point of order that may be waived by 

the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the membership (60 Senators, 

if no seats are vacant). The section reads as follows: 

Sec. 306.—Legislation Dealing With Congressional Budget Must Be Handled 

by Budget Committees. 

No bill, resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report, dealing with 

any matter which is within the jurisdiction of the Committee on the Budget 

of either House shall be considered in that House unless it is a bill or resolution 

which has been reported by the Committee on the Budget of that House (or 

from the consideration of which such committee has been discharged) or unless 

it is an amendment to such a bill or resolution. 

13 

Executive Impoundment Proposals and Impoundment 

Legislation 

The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (Title X of the 1974 

Act) established procedures for the proposal by the President of 

impoundments and their consideration by Congress. The Act classifies impoundments into two types—rescissions, which cancel 

budget authority previously provided in law, and deferrals, which 

delay the obligation or expenditure of budget authority. 

In order to rescind or defer budget authority, the President is 

required to submit to Congress a message detailing his recommendations. In the case of rescissions, the President may withhold funds from obligation for 45 days of ‘‘continuous session’’ 

while Congress considers the request. If Congress does not enact 

legislation approving the rescission during this period, then the 

funds must be released for obligation. The Impoundment Control 

Act establishes rescission bills as the vehicles for approving rescissions, and they are considered under expedited procedures in each 

Chamber. Deferrals take effect and remain in effect (only for a 

temporary period, so that the funds do not lapse) unless overturned 

by Congress. The legislative means for overturning deferrals provided for in the Impoundment Control Act, the one-House legislative veto, was invalidated by the Supreme Court in the INS v. 

Chadha case in 1986. The Comptroller General monitors the impoundment process for Congress, issuing a report evaluating Presidential impoundment messages and submitting messages to Congress when unreported impoundments are discovered. 

The Appropriations Committee historically has exercised jurisdiction in the Senate over the impoundment of appropriated funds. 

The Senate Budget Committee’s involvement in impoundment 

matters is rooted in various authorities. Under the terms of a 

unanimous consent agreement reached in 1975, the Senate Budget 

Committee was given jurisdiction over impoundment messages 

and legislation for the purpose of considering the ‘‘macroeconomic 

implications, impact on priorities and aggregate spending levels, 

and the legality of the President’s use of the deferral and rescission 

mechanism under title X.’’ The agreement was modified on April 

11, 1986, in the wake of the Chadha decision. A standing order 

established in 1977, and effectively superseded by the Senate’s 

adoption of S. Res. 445 in 2004, assigns the Budget Committee 

responsibilities over definitions of impoundment and the process 

by which impoundments are reported to and considered by Congress. 

Although Presidents have from time to time proposed a significant level of impoundments, the curtailment of spending through 

impoundment generally has not been significant. 

14 

Oversight of the Congressional Budget Office 

The Congressional Budget Office was created by Title II of the 

1974 Act. Section 201 (2 U.S.C. 601) established CBO, Section 

202 (2 U.S.C. 602) identified its duties and functions, and Section 

203 (2 U.S.C. 603) set forth rules and guidelines for public access 

to budget data. 

 The New Yorker Collection 1996 Peter Steiner from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved. 


28749.031
15 

The 1974 Act envisioned a close relationship between CBO and 

the Budget Committees, which is reflected mainly in the stated 

duties and functions of each entity. 

Section 202 establishes a hierarchy among the congressional clients that CBO serves. Section 202(a) identifies the primary duty 

and function of CBO as being: 

. . . to provide to the Committees on the Budget of both Houses information 

which will assist such committees in the discharge of all matters within their 

jurisdictions, including (1) information with respect to the budget, appropriations bills, and other bills authorizing or providing new budget authority or 

tax expenditures, (2) information with respect to revenues, receipts, estimated 

future revenues and receipts, and changing revenue conditions, and (3) such related information as such Committees may request. 

Following the Budget Committees, Section 202 directs CBO to 

provide assistance to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, the House Ways and Means Committee, and the Senate 

Finance Committee, then to other House and Senate committees 

and joint committees, and Members of Congress. 

Title I of the 1974 Act created the two Budget Committees. 

In Section 102(a), Senate Rule XXV was modified in part to impose on the Senate Budget Committee the duty ‘‘to review, on a 

continuing basis, the conduct by the Congressional Budget Office 

of its functions and duties.’’ Section 101(c) of the 1974 Act 

amended House Rule XI in part with identical language regarding 

the duty to continuously review CBO’s conduct. 

The standing order established in 1977, and effectively superseded by S. Res. 445 in 2004, assigns jurisdiction over legislation 

affecting the functions, duties, and powers of CBO to the Senate 

Budget Committee. 

The Budget Committee reviews CBO’s conduct in several ways, 

including through meetings and correspondence with the CBO Director and staff, and more formally, through periodic oversight 

hearings. Opportunities to review CBO’s conduct indirectly occur 

as well, especially during hearings on Federal budgetary issues, including the CBO Director’s annual testimony on the budget and 

economic outlook and the update later in the session, and hearings 

on budget process and budget concept issues. 

Finally, the Budget Committee plays a role in the process of selecting a CBO Director for each 4-year term. While the Speaker 

of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate officially 

appoint the CBO Director, they are required under Section 201 

of the 1974 Act to do so ‘‘after considering recommendations received from the Committees on the Budget of the House and Senate.’’ Under informal procedures that have been used in the past, 

the two Budget Committees have alternated in making recommendations to the leadership regarding who should be apVerDate jan 13 2004 11:54 May 09, 2007 Jkt 028749 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 5935 Sfmt 5935 C:\DOCS\BUDGET\28749.TXT CRS1 PsN: SKAYNE
16 

pointed to the position, and the leadership has concurred in their 

recommendations. 

Six persons have served as CBO Director and four Deputy Directors have served as Acting Director during periods when the 

Director’s appointment was delayed or the Director left the position before the term ended (see table 3). 

TABLE 3.—DIRECTORS OF THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE 

Alice M. Rivlin .................................................... 1975-1979 and 1979-1983 terms. 

Rudolph G. Penner ............................................. 1983-1987 term. 

Robert D. Reischauer ......................................... 1987-1991 and 1991-1995 terms. 

June Ellenoff O’Neill ........................................... 1995-1999 term. 

Dan L. Crippen ................................................... 1999-2003 term. 

Douglas Holtz-Eakin ........................................... 2003-2007 term. 

In addition, Deputy Directors Edward Gramlich, James Blum, Barry Anderson, and Donald Marron served 

as Acting Director when the Director’s appointment was delayed or the Director left the position before the 

term ended. 

Funding for CBO is provided in annual appropriation acts. Accordingly, fiscal oversight of CBO is conducted by the House and 

Senate Appropriations Committees. 

Consideration of the Nomination of the Director and 

Deputy Director of the Office of Management and 

Budget 

For many years, nominations to the position of the Director of 

the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Deputy 

Directors, had been referred exclusively to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Late in the 108th Congress, the Senate 

considered S. Res. 445, a measure pertaining mainly to reform of 

congressional oversight of intelligence and jurisdictional changes 

relating to homeland security matters. Among other things, the 

Governmental Affairs Committee was renamed the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and its jurisdiction 

over homeland security matters was consolidated. The jurisdiction 

of the renamed committee also was modified to provide joint jurisdiction with the Budget Committee regarding nominations to the 

positions of OMB Director and Deputy Director (the Budget 

Committee does not have any jurisdiction regarding nominations 

to the position of OMB Deputy Director for Management). 

Section 101(e) of S. Res. 445, as adopted by the Senate in 2004, 

reads as follows: 

(e) OMB NOMINEES.—The Committee on the Budget and the Committee on 

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs shall have joint jurisdiction over 

17 

the nominations of persons nominated by the President to fill the positions of 

Director and Deputy Director for Budget within the Office of Management and 

Budget, and if one committee votes to order reported such a nomination, the 

other must report within 30 calendar days session, or be automatically discharged. 

The new procedure became effective at the beginning of the 

109th Congress. On April 27, 2006, during the second session of 

the 109th Congress, President George W. Bush nominated Robert 

J. Portman to succeed Joshua Bolten as the OMB Director. The 

nomination was referred jointly that day to the Budget Committee 

and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. 

The Budget Committee held a hearing on the nomination on May 

11 and approved the nomination on May 23, by a vote of 22 to 

0. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee 

approved the nomination by voice vote on May 22, and the full 

Senate approved the nomination by voice vote on May 26. 

On June 9, 2006, President Bush nominated Stephen S. 

McMillin to the position of OMB Deputy Director. The Budget 

Committee approved the nomination on July 13, by unanimous 

consent. On July 28, the full Senate approved the nomination, by 

unanimous consent. 

19 

History of the Congressional Budget Process and 

the Senate Committee on the Budget 

The Senate Budget Committee was created more than 30 years 

ago under landmark reform legislation, the Congressional Budget 

and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (P.L. 93–344; 88 Stat. 

297–339; 2 U.S.C. 621 et seq.). The Act also created the parallel 

Budget Committee in the House of Representatives and established the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The two Budget 

Committees and CBO were created for the primary purpose of assisting the Senate and House in developing and enforcing budgetary plans in the form of annual concurrent resolutions on the 

budget and any required reconciliation legislation. Following a 

background on the roots of the Federal budgeting system, this section recounts the circumstances that gave rise to budget reform in 

the early 1970s, examines the legislative history of the 1974 Act, 

and reviews the origin and development of the Senate Budget 

Committee, from 1974 to the present. 

Background 

The Constitution of the United States vests the Congress with 

key budgetary powers. These powers, often referred to as ‘‘the 

power of the purse,’’ derive from several provisions in Article I of 

the Constitution. With respect to raising income through taxation 

and borrowing, Section 8 declares that ‘‘[t]he Congress shall have 

Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to 

pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general 

Welfare of the United States . . .’’ and ‘‘[t]o borrow Money on 

the credit of the United States.’’ In the case of spending, Section 

9 states that ‘‘[n]o Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but 

in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law . . . .’’ The Constitution thus ensures a role of pivotal importance for Congress in 

Federal budgeting by requiring that funds can only be raised, borrowed, and spent through the enactment of legislation. 

James Madison, the primary architect of the Constitution and 

the fourth President of the United States, asserted that vesting 

budgetary powers in the Congress was a critical element in maintaining freedom and promoting fair government: 

20 

1 Federalist No. 58 (Objection That The Number of Members Will Not Be Augmented as the Progress 

of Population Demands Considered), by James Madison. See the collection of the Federalist Papers at 

the Library of Congress Website at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedl58.html. 

This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete 

and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for 

carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.1

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division [LC–USZ62–87924]. 

James Madison, fourth President of the United States, wrote about the ‘‘power 

over the purse’’ in the 58th essay of the Federalist Papers. 


28749.021
21 

2The historical development of the two committees is discussed in: (1) History of the Committee 

on Finance, United States Senate, S. Doc. 97–5, May 12, 1981, available on the Website of the Senate 

Finance Committee at http://finance.senate.gov/history.pdf; and (2) The Committee on Ways and 

Means; a Bicentennial History, 1780–1989, H. Doc. 100–244, [no date] available on the Website 

of the Government Printing Office at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/cdocuments/100–244/ 

browse.html. 3The historical development of the two committees is discussed in: (1) Committee on Appropriations, 

United States Senate, 138th Anniversary, 1867–2005, S. Doc. 109–5, 2005; and (2) Congressional Research Service, The House Appropriations Process, 1789–1993, by Louis Fisher, CRS Report 93–729 

S, Aug. 6, 1993. 

While the Constitution assigns the principal role in Federal 

budgeting to Congress, it does not, for the most part, prescribe 

the procedures it should follow in exercising this role. Section 7 

provides that ‘‘All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the 

House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur 

with Amendments as on other Bills.’’ Section 8 places a 2-year 

limit on the duration of certain military funding. Otherwise, the 

Constitution does not address how the House and Senate should 

organize themselves, or the procedures they should follow, for the 

consideration of budgetary legislation. Furthermore, the Constitution allows each Chamber to develop its own rules and procedures; 

Section 5 states in part that ‘‘Each House may determine the 

Rules of its Proceedings . . . .’’ 

In the early years of the Nation, the House and Senate approached their budgetary responsibilities in a largely ad hoc fashion, establishing short-lived committees to handle single issues. 

This was followed by a period in which budgetary responsibilities 

were concentrated mainly in two standing committees—the Senate 

Finance Committee, established in 1816, and the House Ways and 

Means Committee, established in 1802.2

Following the surge in spending and debt levels associated with 

the Civil War, the House, in 1865, and the Senate, in 1867, each 

established a standing Appropriations Committee, thus dividing 

jurisdiction over spending and revenues between two committees 

in each Chamber (with the Senate Finance and House Ways and 

Means Committees retaining jurisdiction over revenues).3 During 

the 1880s, the jurisdiction of the House and Senate Appropriations 

Committees over Federal spending began to erode, until a sizeable 

portion was under the control of various legislative committees in 

each Chamber. This fragmentation of spending jurisdiction continued for several decades until reforms in the early 1920s reconsolidated the Appropriations Committees’ jurisdiction. 

The Constitution confers many duties and powers on the President, but it does not explicitly give the President a role in Federal 

budgeting. Budgetary legislation, of course, like legislation on any 

other matter, must be presented to the President before it can become law (under Article I, Section 7), and he has the authority 

to approve or veto it. Among the different duties and powers of 

22 

4The early budget practices of the executive branch are summarized in Kimmel, Lewis H., Federal 

Budget and Fiscal Policy, 1789–1958 (The Brookings Institution: Washington, DC), 1959. 

the President set forth in Title II, Section 3 provides that ‘‘[h]e 

shall from time to time give the Congress Information of the State 

of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient . . .’’ 

The decentralized and fragmented approach to budgeting employed by Congress over the years was mirrored in the executive 

branch. Agency requests for funds were compiled by the Secretary 

of the Treasury into a ‘‘book of estimates’’ submitted annually to 

Congress, but there was little uniformity in the manner in which 

each agency prepared its requests. The President did not play a 

formal role in reviewing and coordinating the funding requests, 

and the funding requests were not considered in relation to requests for revenue.4

In 1910, President William H. Taft appointed a Commission 

on Economy and Efficiency which focused attention on the need 

for a national budgeting system. Although the Commission’s recommendations were not acted on, they helped to foster reform in 

the following decade, when concern about the Nation’s fiscal condition spiked in response to the steep rise in spending and debt 

levels due to World War I and other matters. 

Select committees in the House and Senate examined the issue 

of a national budgeting system in 1919 and 1920, recommending 

legislation that would require the President to submit an annual 

budget for the entire Federal Government. President Woodrow 

Wilson vetoed the legislation in 1920, due to concerns regarding 

the constitutionality of his removal power over the proposed position of Comptroller General. Modified legislation was signed into 

law the following year by President Warren G. Harding, as the 

Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 (42 Stat. 20 et seq.). 

In addition to requiring the President to submit a budget for 

the Federal Government annually to Congress, the 1921 Act created the Bureau of the Budget (as part of the Treasury Department) to assist with the President’s budgetary role. The Budget 

Bureau was made part of the Executive Office of the President in 

1939, and renamed the Office of Management and Budget in 

1970. The 1921 Act also created the General Accounting Office 

(later renamed the Government Accountability Office in 2004), 

headed by the Comptroller General. 

23 

 1921, 1922, The Washington Post. Reprinted with Permission. 

Washington Post headlines from 1921 and 1922 concerning passage of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 and the creation of the Bureau of the Budget, 

which became the Office of Management and Budget in 1970. 


28749.029
24 

5The Federal budget process, as it existed in the middle of the 20th century, is described in: 

Smithies, Arthur. The Budgetary Process in the United States. McGraw-Hill (New York: 1955). 

The Federal budgeting system created by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 continued in place for several decades without fundamental change. The 1921 Act was revised on occasion, 

perhaps most notably by the Budget and Accounting Procedures 

Act of 1950 (64 Stat. 2317 et seq.). The changes to the 1921 Act 

were given impetus, in part, by the reports of the first and second 

Hoover Commissions in 1949 and 1955, respectively. Although 

the changes expanded and refined Presidential authority and responsibilities in the area of budgeting, they did not alter the basic 

purpose and scope of the 1921 Act.5

Prelude to the 1974 Reform 

The period from the end of World War II until the early 1970s 

was one in which Congress examined and reexamined its organization and procedures for budgeting. Although several different approaches to reform were tried (see table 1), they generally did not 

prove to be workable or durable. 

TABLE 1.—PRE-1974 REFORM EFFORTS 

• Legislative budgets of 1947, 1948, and 1949 under the Legislative Reorganization Act of 

1946 

• The Employment Act of 1946, which established the Joint Economic Committee 

• The Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1950 

• The President’s Commission on Budget Concepts (1967) 

• Statutory spending limits and reductions (1967–1972) 

• Joint Study Committee on Budget Control (1972–1973) 

The first major congressional reform of the post-World War II 

era was the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. The Act fundamentally restructured and modernized the committee system, 

among other things, scaling back the number of committees in 

both the House and Senate and boosting committee staff resources. 

One provision in the Act was aimed at establishing, for the first 

time, a requirement that the House and Senate agree to an overall 

budget plan early in the session to guide the subsequent consideration of budgetary legislation. Section 138 of the Act (60 Stat. 

812) created a Joint Committee on the Legislative Budget, consisting of Members appointed from the House and Senate Appropriations Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, and 

the Senate Finance Committee. The charter of the joint committee 

was to examine the President’s budget at the beginning of each 

25 

6 See ‘‘The Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1950,’’ by Dalmus H. Nelson, Journal of Politics, vol. 

15, no. 2, May 1953. 

session and to report by February 15 of each year a legislative 

budget, including estimates of total spending and revenues. 

The first attempt to implement a legislative budget, in 1947, 

failed when the House and Senate could not reach agreement on 

the legislation. In 1948, the two Chambers agreed on a budget 

but then exceeded it. Finally, in 1949, the House and Senate again 

failed to agree on a legislative budget, despite extending the reporting deadline from February 15 to May 1. The legislative 

budget required by Section 138 was not pursued thereafter, and 

the section was repealed two decades later by Section 242 of the 

Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970. 

Many factors have been cited for the failure of the legislative 

budget in the late 1940s. In addition to its attempted implementation in a difficult political climate with sharp disagreement over 

budget policies, the legislative budget failed because the joint 

committee was hampered by an unrealistically tight timetable in 

which to complete its actions, a lack of useful budgetary information, insufficient staff resources, and its unwieldy size (at about 

100 members). 

Another budgetary reform in 1946 was the enactment of the 

Employment Act of 1946. The Act recognized the important role 

the Federal Government plays in promoting economic growth and 

stabilization. The Act created the Joint Economic Committee to 

assist Congress in this role. 

In 1950, the House and Senate undertook a one-time experiment in improving legislative efficiency by considering all of the 

regular appropriation acts for FY1951 in a single bill.6 Advocates 

of this approach had attempted for several years to mandate it 

through legislative action. On September 27, 1949, the Senate 

adopted a resolution providing for an omnibus appropriations procedure, S. Con. Res. 18, but the House did not take comparable 

action. Instead, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees 

decided that during the next session they would combine the regular appropriations acts for FY1951 into a single measure. The 

two committees were able to accomplish this result without any 

changes in rules, but simply by exercising their own authority to 

determine the number of appropriation measures. 

After lengthy consideration, the House and Senate completed 

action on the measure, which was signed into law on September 

6, 1950 (more than 2 months after the fiscal year had begun) as 

the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1950 (81st Congress, P.L. 

759). Although some aspects of the experience were viewed favorably, the House and Senate did not pass the legislation with any 

26 

7 President’s Commission on Budget Concepts. Report of the President’s Commission on Budget Concepts. U.S. Govt. Printing Office. (Washington: October 1967). Reprinted in 1987. 

less time or effort than it took to pass appropriation acts individually in other years. Further, by virtue of being packaged into an 

omnibus measure, the enactment of some of the appropriation 

measures was delayed considerably compared to the usual practice. 

The following year, the House and Senate returned to the practice of considering the regular appropriation acts individually. 

Congressional action on omnibus appropriation acts would not 

recur for several decades. 

One enduring achievement in the area of budget reform during 

this period was the President’s Commission on Budget Concepts, 

appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967. The membership of the commission was diverse, including Members of Congress (the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate 

Appropriations Committees), the Secretary of the Treasury (Henry 

H. Fowler), the OMB Director (Charles L. Schultze), the Comptroller General (Elmer B. Staats), and representatives of the private 

sector and academia. The commission was chaired by David M. 

Kennedy, chairman of the board, Continental Illinois National 

Bank and Trust Company of Chicago. 

In its report later that year, the Commission set forth an overarching framework of budget concepts that largely underpins the 

budget process in use today.7 One of the most important recommendations of the commission centered on ending the use of 

multiple budget presentations, including the administrative budget, the consolidated cash budget, and the Federal sector of the national income accounts. Each of the three approaches to budget 

presentation had been criticized for deficiencies or drawbacks that 

impaired sound policymaking, and the Commission recommended 

replacing them with the ‘‘unified budget.’’ Under the unified 

budget, all Federal funds and trust funds of the government are 

melded together into a single document, thereby improving the 

understanding of the scope of the Federal budget and analysis of 

the budget’s impact on, and interaction with, the economy. 

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, a deteriorating budget 

picture led to clashes between Congress and the President. Toward 

the end of the Johnson administration, budgetary strains were created by the rising costs of the war in Vietnam, increased spending 

for the Great Society programs, and a Presidential request for a 

surtax, among other factors. The budgetary strains continued into 

the administration of President Richard M. Nixon, who clashed repeatedly with Congress over budget priorities. 

27 

Convened by President Lyndon Johnson, this commission, tasked with studying 

ways to modernize the Federal budget process, recommended creating a unified 

budget system to enhance congressional and public understanding of the Federal 

budget and provide a more useful instrument of public and financial policy. 


28749.025
28 

8Congressional actions in this regard are discussed in detail in: Schick, Allen. Congress and Money. 

The Urban Institute (Washington: 1980). See Chapter II (The Seven-Year Budget War: 1966–73), 

pp. 17–49. The five laws involved were: (1) P.L. 90–218; (2) P.L. 90–364; (3) P.L. 91–47; (4) 

P.L. 91–305; and (5) P.L. 92–599. 

From 1967 through 1972, Congress acted five times on proposals to limit or reduce Federal spending.8 These proposals involved spending reductions included in a continuing appropriations act (1967), spending limits combined with tax legislation 

(1968), spending limits included in supplemental appropriations 

acts (1969 and 1970), and spending limits included in a measure 

increasing the limit on the public debt (1972). 

The ad hoc nature of congressional actions to deal with spending control and other budgetary issues highlighted the inadequacy 

of House and Senate procedures for making budget policy. In 

order to resolve the many problems in budget process that beset 

the House and Senate during this period, the two Chambers included a provision in one of the last measures approved by the 

92nd Congress intended to lead to reform in the following Congress. A bill temporarily increasing the public debt by $65 billion 

and providing for a 1-day limit of $250 billion on spending, H.R. 

16810 was signed into law by President Nixon on October 27, 

1972, as P.L. 92–599 (86 Stat. 1324–1326). Section 301 of the 

Act established a joint committee which came to be known as the 

Joint Study Committee on Budget Control. 

The Joint Study Committee on Budget Control consisted of 32 

members, 16 from each Chamber, appointed by the Speaker of the 

House and the President pro tempore of the Senate. Seven House 

Members and seven Senate Members were appointed from the Appropriations Committees, the same number were appointed from 

the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees, and 

two additional Members from each Chamber were appointed. The 

main task of the Joint Study Committee, as set forth in Section 

301(b) of P.L. 92–599, was to report by February 15, 1973 on 

a: 

. . . full study and review of . . . the procedures which should be adopted 

by the Congress for the purpose of improving congressional control of budgetary 

outlay and receipt totals, including procedures for establishing and maintaining 

an overall view of each year’s budgetary outlays which is fully coordinated with 

an overall view of the anticipated revenues for that year. . . .’’ 

The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control 

Act of 1974 

In 1973 and 1974, during the 93rd Congress, the House and 

Senate finally brought the issue of comprehensive budget process 

reform to a successful conclusion. During this period, the House 

29 

and Senate pursued several broad-scale reforms that encompassed 

fundamental issues in executive-legislative relations and the separation of powers. Among other things, congressional actions dealt 

with war powers as the war in Vietnam drew to a close; focused 

on intelligence oversight in the wake of disclosures of domestic 

spying and other abuses; and pursued charges of corruption in the 

Nixon administration and impeachment following revelations 

stemming from Watergate. 

With regard to budget process reform, Congress faced many different issues. Congressional actions in the preceding years had 

clearly demonstrated that it lacked an effective means of determining budget priorities and coordinating revenue and spending 

policies, both in terms of a legislative vehicle and committee 

structure. The deficiencies in procedure and structure contributed, 

in the view of many, to undesirable budget outcomes, such as persistent and growing deficits, excessive spending and a growing 

portion of outlays considered to be ‘‘relatively uncontrollable,’’ and 

an undue reliance upon the executive for budgetary information 

and analysis. Undesirable procedural outcomes were attributed to 

these deficiencies as well, including delays in the annual appropriations process, leading to funding gaps and excessive reliance on 

continuing appropriations acts. 

During his 1972 reelection campaign, in his FY1973 budget 

submission to Congress, and in other venues, President Nixon 

criticized the House and Senate for shortcomings in budget procedure. Their ‘‘hoary and traditional’’ procedures, he argued, impaired the enactment of sound budgetary policies. 

Another major concern centered around the large-scale impoundment of funds by the Nixon administration. In addition to 

the number and size of the Nixon impoundments, which in 1973 

reached about $18 billion (far more than any previous President 

had impounded) and represented a sizeable share of the approximately $170 billion in appropriations enacted annually at that 

time, Congress was concerned that the purpose of most of the impoundments was to overturn congressional priorities established in 

appropriations acts, thereby undermining its power of the purse. 

The Joint Study Committee, created at the end of the 1972 session, was cochaired by Representative Jamie L. Whitten (chairman 

of the House Appropriations Committee) and Representative Al 

Ullman (chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee). The 

Joint Study Committee held eight hearings between January 18 

30 

 1972, 1973, The Washington Post. Reprinted with Permission. 

During the early 1970s, Congress and the President clashed repeatedly over 

budget priorities as reflected in these Washington Post headlines from 1972 and 

1973. 


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31 

9 See the reports of the Joint Study Committee on Budget Control: (1) Improving Congressional 

Control Over Budgetary Outlay and Receipt Totals; Interim Report, H. Rept. 93–13, Feb. 7, 1973; and 

(2) Recommendations for Improving Congressional Control Over Budgetary Outlay and Receipt Totals, H. 

Rept. 93–147, Apr. 18, 1973. 10 Joint Study Committee, H. Rept. 93–147, ibid., p. 1. 

and March 15, 1973. On February 7, 1973, the Joint Study Committee issued an interim report, and, on April 18, 1973, it issued 

a final report.9

In its final report, the Joint Study Committee drew special attention to Congress’s difficulty in controlling the deficit. The Joint 

Study Committee concluded that ‘‘the failure to arrive at congressional budget decisions on an overall basis has been a contributory 

factor in this picture.’’ Further, the Joint Study Committee noted: 

The fact that no committee has the responsibility to decide whether or not 

total outlays are appropriate in view of the current situation appears to be responsible for much of the problem. Perhaps still more critical for the process 

is the distribution of jurisdiction over components of the budget among several 

different congressional committees. As a result, each spending bill tends to be 

considered by Congress as a separate entity, and any assessment of relative priorities among spending programs for the most part is made solely within the context of the bill before Congress.10

The Joint Study Committee recommended the establishment of 

a 21-member Budget Committee in the House and a 15-member 

Budget Committee in the Senate. One-third of each Committee’s 

members would be appointed from the Appropriations Committee 

in that Chamber, one-third from the revenue committees (House 

Ways and Means and Senate Finance), and one-third from the 

House and Senate at large, with the chairmanships of each Budget 

Committee alternating between the appropriations and revenue 

committees. 

As proposed by the Joint Study Committee, the House and Senate Budget Committees would be responsible for developing and 

reporting an annual concurrent resolution on the budget, to be 

adopted by May 1 of each year, setting forth limitations on spending, revenues, the surplus or deficit, and debt. In conducting their 

activities, the House and Senate Budget Committees would be 

served by a joint staff, dedicated almost exclusively to supporting 

the two Committees. Floor consideration of the budget resolution 

would take place under procedures that in effect would significantly restrict a Member’s ability to offer amendments. 

The recommendations of the Joint Study Committee were embodied in identical legislation introduced in each Chamber, H.R. 

7130 and S. 1641 (see table 2). While H.R. 7130 became the 

32 

The final report of this bicameral committee, formed in 1972, recommended 

the formation of committees on the budget in both the House and Senate for 

budget review and provided a framework for what would become the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. 

principal vehicle for budget process reform in the House, the main 

vehicle in the Senate was S. 1541, a budget process reform measure introduced on April 11, 1973 (a week before the Joint Study 

Committee issued its final report) by Senator Sam Ervin, the chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee. In addiVerDate jan 13 2004 11:54 May 09, 2007 Jkt 028749 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 5935 Sfmt 5935 C:\DOCS\BUDGET\28749.TXT CRS1 PsN: SKAYNE

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tion, the House and Senate passed separate impoundment control 

legislation in 1973 (H.R. 8480 and S. 373, respectively), before 

the issue was merged into budget process reform legislation in 

1974. 

TABLE 2.—LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE 1974 ACT 

• House Rules Committee reported H.R. 7130 by a vote of 15 to 0 (H. Rept. 93–658, November 

20, 1973) 

• House considered H.R. 7130 on December 4 and 5, 1973, passing it by a vote of 386 to 23 

• Senate Government Operations Committee reported S. 1541 by a vote of 10 to 0 (S. Rept. 

93–579, November 28, 1973) 

• Senate Rules and Administration Committee reported S. 1541 by a vote of 9 to 0 (S. Rept. 

93–688, March 6, 1974) 

• Senate considered S. 1541 on March 19–22, 1974, passing it by a vote of 80 to 0 

• Conference agreement on H.R. 7130 reported (H. Rept. 93–1101, June 11, 1974, and S. 

Rept. 93–924, June 12, 1974) 

• House agreed to conference report on June 18, 1974, by a vote of 401 to 6, and Senate 

agreed to it on June 21, by a vote of 75 to 0 

• President Richard Nixon signed H.R. 7130 into law on July 12, 1974, as P.L. 93–344 

In the House, H.R. 7130 was referred to the House Rules Committee, which was chaired by Representative Ray J. Madden. Between July 19 and September 20, 1973, the Rules Committee 

held 7 hearings on H.R. 7130 and other budget process reform 

legislation, receiving testimony from more than 20 witnesses. During markup of H.R. 7130 in November, many modifications were 

made to the bill. On November 13, the Rules Committee voted 

unanimously (15 to 0) to report the bill with an amendment in 

the nature of a substitute. The Committee’s report (H. Rept. 93– 

658) was printed on November 20, 1973. 

For the most part, the House Rules Committee’s recommendations corresponded with those made by the Joint Study Committee, but with several significant changes. Rather than a single 

budget resolution each year, the House and Senate would adopt 

a spring budget resolution (by May 1) setting targets and a fall 

budget resolution that would be binding. The House Budget 

Committee would consist of 23 members, with 10 members selected from the House Appropriations and Ways and Means Committees, 2 from the party leadership, and 11 members at large. 

Thus, the Rules Committee recommended both a slightly larger 

Budget Committee and one more representative of the House as 

a whole. A Legislative Budget Office would serve as a joint staff 

to the two Budget Committees, but would serve other congressional offices as well. The start of the fiscal year would be switched 

34 

from July 1 to October 1 of each year, to allow more time for 

Congress to complete action on budgetary legislation. Finally, the 

Rules Committee added the issue of impoundment control, incorporating into H.R. 7130 the provisions of H.R. 8480, with modifications, which the House had passed earlier in the year, on July 

25. 

In the Senate, S. 1541 was referred to the Senate Government 

Operations Committee on April 11, 1973. The Committee referred 

budget process reform legislation to a newly created subcommittee 

chaired by Senator Lee Metcalf, the Subcommittee on Budgeting, 

Management, and Expenditures. On April 2, 1973, the Subcommittee held its first hearing, receiving testimony on nine Senate bills pertaining to budget process reform that had been referred to the Subcommittee at that point. Additional measures, including S. 1541, were referred to the Subcommittee as the session 

progressed. The Subcommittee held 7 additional hearings through 

August, receiving testimony from more than 30 witnesses, before 

reporting the measure to the Full Committee by a 5 to 4 vote. 

The Senate Government Operations Committee considered S. 

1541 in October and November of 1973, and ordered the bill, as 

amended with an amendment in the nature of a substitute, reported on November 8 by a unanimous vote of 10 to 0 (four other 

Committee members voted yea by proxy and the remaining two 

Committee members did not vote). The Committee’s report on S. 

1541 (S. Rept. 93–579) was filed on November 20 and printed 

on November 28. 

In view of the significant changes that S. 1541 proposed to 

make to the standing rules of the Senate, the bill was referred to 

the Senate Rules and Administration Committee on November 30, 

with instructions to report it by February 25, 1974. The bill was 

referred to the Subcommittee on the Standing Rules of the Senate, 

chaired by Senator Robert C. Byrd. The Subcommittee held a 

hearing on the bill on January 15, 1974. 

After the hearing, Senators Sam Ervin and Charles Percy, chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Government Operations Committee, suggested that the Rules and Administration 

Committee provide a forum for all interested parties to review the 

bill. A staff working group was convened by the Rules and Administration Committee, representing 10 Senate standing committees, 4 joint committees, the House Appropriations Committee, 

the Congressional Research Service, and the Office of Senate Legislative Counsel. Over the course of 16 days, the working group met 

for about 90 hours in 25 sessions. Their efforts resulted in significant changes in the bill. On February 20, 1974, the Rules and 

Administration Committee adopted the changes, with some further 

35 

11Transcript, John McEvoy interview, August 21, 2006, U.S. Senate Historical Office. 

modifications, in the form of an amendment in the nature of a 

substitute. The Committee’s report on S. 1541 (S. Rept. 93–688) 

was filed on February 21, 1974, and printed on March 6. 

The true father of the budget process is neither Senator Muskie nor Senator Ervin, 

both of whom wrote the original bill, but Senator Robert Byrd, who was chairman of 

the Rules Committee at that time and looked at the bill that the Governmental Affairs 

Committee reported and said, ‘‘This won’t work.’’ He took it and rewrote it in the form 

it became law. He was instrumental both as whip and later as majority leader because 

he could have leaned against us and probably eviscerated the Committee, but he 

didn’t. He stood with us, and as a result, the process became as established as it 

did.11

—John McEvoy, Senate Budget Committee Staff Director, 1977–1980 

The consensus measure recommended by the Senate Rules and 

Administration Committee generally maintained a correspondence 

with the House on many key issues, but with some significant differences. The Committee’s recommendations envisioned two budget resolutions each year; the first (to be adopted by June 1) would 

establish targets for spending, revenues, the surplus or deficit, and 

debt, and the second (to be adopted in the fall) would be binding. 

A Congressional Office on the Budget would serve the Budget 

Committees and other congressional offices as well, but unlike the 

House, the Senate did not envision it serving as a joint staff for 

the Budget Committees. Instead, the Senate expected that each 

Budget Committee would have its own staff, as in the case of 

other House and Senate committees. A 15-member Senate Budget 

Committee would be established, as originally proposed. The 

Committee’s recommendations did not encompass impoundment 

controls generally, but an amendment to the Antideficiency Act 

was included that more clearly restricted the President’s authority 

to withhold funds. 

The House began initial consideration of H.R. 7130 on December 4, 1973, after adopting a special rule (H. Res. 715) providing 

for the bill’s consideration. The next day, December 5, the House 

passed H.R. 7130 by a vote of 386 to 23. The House-passed bill 

reflected the Rules Committee’s amendment in the nature of a 

substitute, as amended by two relatively minor amendments. Nine 

other amendments to the Committee’s substitute were rejected. 

The Senate considered S. 1541 from March 19 through March 

22, 1974. On the first day of consideration, the Senate agreed to 

the amendment in the nature of a substitute proposed by the 

Rules and Administration Committee, which was subject to furVerDate jan 13 2004 11:54 May 09, 2007 Jkt 028749 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 5935 Sfmt 5935 C:\DOCS\BUDGET\28749.TXT CRS1 PsN: SKAYNE
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12 See the statement of President Nixon on the Act in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Docu- ments, vol. 10, no. 28, July 12, 1974. 13The remarks of Senator Sam Ervin in the Congressional Record of June 21, 1974, as reprinted 

in: U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations. Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974; Legislative History. Committee print (93rd Cong., 2nd sess.). December 

1974, pp. 1989–1990. 14Committee on Government Operations, ibid., pp. 2018–2019. 

ther amendment, and a series of technical and conforming amendments offered by Senator Ervin. During the ensuing 3 days, 19 

other amendments were adopted and 8 were rejected. On March 

22, the Senate passed the House bill, H.R. 7130, after striking 

out the House-passed text and inserting in lieu thereof the provisions of S. 1541 as amended. The vote on final passsage was 80 

to 0. 

Conferees met on H.R. 7130 as passed by the House and the 

Senate amendment thereto, reached a compromise, and, on June 5, 

1974, agreed to file a conference report. The conference report was 

printed on June 11 (as H. Rept. 93–1101) and on June 12 (as 

S. Rept. 93–924). On June 18, the House agreed to the conference 

report, by a vote of 401 to 6, clearing the measure for the Senate. 

The Senate agreed to the conference report, by a vote of 75 to 0, 

on June 21, clearing the measure for the President. President 

Nixon signed the bill into law, as the Congressional Budget and 

Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (P.L. 93–344), on July 12, 

1974.12

During Senate consideration of the conference report, several 

Senators with long service in the Chamber commented on the special importance of the legislation. Senator Sam Ervin, for example, 

noted: 

To my mind, this is the most important piece of legislation that I have 

worked on during the 20 years that I have served in the Senate. It is the finest 

example of the legislative process at work that I have ever witnessed.13

Senator Charles Percy commented on the extraordinary efforts 

involved in the enactment of the 1974 Act: 

. . . when we set our minds to do something, we really can accomplish 

something that is in the national interest, and that certainly will serve the interests of every taxpayer and citizen in the country. . . . For such a bill to be 

passed within a single Congress is a tribute to the dedication to which Senators 

and Representatives have approached this very difficult task.14

Senator Lee Metcalf placed the challenge presented by the 1974 

Act within the context of previous reform efforts: 

That challenge—stated plainly—was to find a mechanism by which 535 

Members of Congress could determine an appropriate budget for the Nation and 

conduct their legislative business within it. Since 1921, attempts have been 

made by Congress to meet this challenge. All have failed for a variety of reasons, not the least of which were political. The result has been increasing control over fiscal policy by the executive branch, not provided in, nor even contemplated by, the Constitution. 

37 

15Committee on Government Operations, ibid., pp. 2002–2004. 

The mechanism created by this legislation is more comprehensive, more dynamic, than anything previously considered. It is framed within the traditions 

and procedures of Congress, but at the same time it provides a new set of rules 

which, if followed, will work.15

The 1974 Act is a lengthy and complex measure, consisting of 

10 titles. The first nine titles of the Act are referred to as the Congressional Budget Act of 1974; the last title, Title X, is referred 

to as the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Section 2 provides 

a declaration of purposes for the entire Act: 

Sec. 2. The Congress declares that it is essential— 

(1) to assure effective congressional control over the budgetary process; 

(2) to provide for the congressional determination each year of the appropriate level of Federal revenues and expenditures; 

(3) to provide a system of impoundment control; 

(4) to establish national budget priorities; and 

(5) to provide for the furnishing of information by the executive branch 

in a manner that will assist the Congress in discharging its duties. 

As enacted in 1974, Title I of the Act provided for a 23-member House Budget Committee and a 15-member Senate Budget 

Committee, with responsibility principally to develop and enforce 

annual budget resolutions. 

Title II of the Act created the Congressional Budget Office 

(CBO), headed by a director appointed to a 4-year term, to provide Congress with budgetary information and analysis prepared 

on an independent, nonpartisan basis. The Act established a hierarchy regarding CBO’s duties and functions in which its primary 

responsibility is to assist the House and Senate Budget Committees, followed by the appropriations and revenue committees, followed by other committees and Members. 

Title III set forth the timetable and procedures of the congressional budget process, including the requirement that an advisory 

budget resolution be adopted by May 15, and a binding budget 

resolution be adopted by September 15, and set forth reconciliation procedures to be used, if needed, in conjunction with the 

second budget resolution. Further, Title III specified the required 

contents of budget resolutions, including the total levels of spending, revenues, the surplus or deficit, and debt, a breakdown of 

spending by major functional categories, and provided for optional 

procedures and matters to be included, as appropriate. A provision 

also allowed for additional budget resolutions, if necessary. 

Title IV imposed new controls on entitlement legislation, as 

well as legislation involving contract authority and borrowing authority. Additionally, the title established May 15 as a reporting 

deadline for authorizing legislation. 

38 

Title V changed the start of the fiscal year from July 1 to October 1 and provided for a 3-month transition quarter (July 1–September 30, 1976) to implement the change. 

Titles VI through IX made various changes in the budget process, including changes affecting the President’s budget, the conduct of program evaluation by the Comptroller General, the availability of budgetary information to Congress, and technical and 

conforming matters. 

Title X established new procedures for impoundment control, 

defining impoundments as either rescissions or deferrals, requiring 

the submission of Presidential impoundment messages, setting 

forth House and Senate procedures for the expedited consideration 

of legislation dealing with rescission and deferral proposals, and 

imposing on the Comptroller General responsibilities for monitoring executive impoundments and reporting to Congress. 

The Senate Budget Committee was established shortly after the 

enactment of the 1974 Act. On July 25, 1974, the Senate adopted 

S. Res. 367, without objection, appointing nine Democratic members, and on August 7, the Senate adopted S. Res. 378, without 

objection, appointing six Republican members. Senator Edmund S. 

Muskie was chosen to be the chairman and Senator Peter H. 

Dominick was chosen to be the ranking member. (Senator 

Dominick lost his bid for reelection in 1974 and was replaced in 

that position in 1975 by Senator Henry Bellmon.) 

By any standard, the first Members of the Senate Budget Committee (see table 3) were an exceptional group, and several of them 

later served in other important elective or appointive positions. 

The chairman, Senator Edmund S. Muskie, served as Secretary of 

State under President Jimmy Carter, while Senator Walter F. 

Mondale served as Vice President to President Carter. Senators ErTABLE 3.—FIRST MEMBERS OF THE SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE (93RD CONGRESS, 2ND 

SESSION, 1974) 

(Democrats in italic; Republicans in roman) 

Edmund S. Muskie, Chairman 

Warren G. Magnuson 

Frank E. Moss 

Walter F. Mondale 

Ernest F. Hollings 

Alan Cranston 

Lawton Chiles 

James G. Abourezk 

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. 

Peter H. Dominick, Ranking Member 

Milton R. Young 

Roman L. Hruska 

Jacob K. Javits 

Paul J. Fannin 

Robert J. Dole 

39 

nest F. Hollings and Lawton Chiles each later served as chairman 

(and ranking member) of the Budget Committee. Senator Peter H. 

Dominick was appointed Ambassador to Switzerland by President 

Gerald Ford and Senator Robert J. Dole twice held the position 

of Senate majority leader. 

The first organizational meeting of the new Committee was 

held on August 13, 1974. Although the Committee did not begin 

its legislative functions until the following year, it held a series 

of hearings beginning on August 14 on the impact of the Federal 

budget on inflation. (See the Appendix for opening statements 

from the Committee’s first hearing.) A funding resolution to cover 

the initial expenses of the Budget Committee through February 

28, 1975, S. Res. 406, was agreed to by the Senate on October 

10. 

The House Budget Committee also was established soon after 

the enactment of the 1974 Act. In August 1974, Representative 

Al Ullman was chosen to be the chairman, but he stepped down 

from the position a few months later to accept the chairmanship 

of the House Ways and Means Committee and was succeeded as 

chairman by Representative Brock Adams. 

As provided for in Section 905(b) (88 Stat. 331) of the 1974 

Act, the Congressional Budget Office officially came into existence 

on the day that the first CBO Director was appointed. This occurred on February 24, 1975, with the appointment of Alice 

Rivlin. 

The First Decade: From ‘‘Dry Run’’ to Reconciliation 

The first decade of the congressional budget process, covering 

the 94th Congress through the 98th Congress (1975–1984), was 

marked by many significant developments, including the maturation of the process from tentative and uncertain beginnings into 

an established routine of the House and Senate, the increased reliance on the new process to deal with mounting challenges in Federal budget policy, and procedural innovation that sometimes was 

dramatic. 

At the beginning of the 94th Congress, in 1975, the Senate 

Budget Committee began to carry out its legislative functions. 

Senator Edmund S. Muskie, the first chairman, served in that capacity for more than 5 years, stepping aside in May 1980 to serve 

as Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter. He was succeeded as chairman by Senator Ernest F. Hollings. Senator Henry 

Bellmon became the ranking member of the Committee at the beginning of the 94th Congress, and continued to serve in that position through 1980 (see table 4). 

40 

TABLE 4.—COMMITTEE LEADERSHIP: 94TH–98TH CONGRESSES 

94th Congress (1975–1976) ....................... Chairman, Edmund S. Muskie (D) 

Ranking Member, Henry Bellmon (R) 

95th Congress (1977–1978) ....................... Chairman, Edmund S. Muskie (D) 

Ranking Member, Henry Bellmon (R) 

96th Congress (1979–1980) ....................... Chairman, Edmund S. Muskie (D) (through May 7, 

1980) 

Chairman, Ernest F. Hollings (D) (from May 13, 

1980) 

Ranking Member, Henry Bellmon (R) 

97th Congress (1981–1982) ....................... Chairman, Pete V. Domenici (R) 

Ranking Member, Ernest F. Hollings (D) 

98th Congress (1983–1984) ....................... Chairman, Pete V. Domenici (R) 

Ranking Member, Lawton Chiles (D) 

Courtesy of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library. 

The first chairman, Edmund S. Muskie, and second ranking member, Henry 

Bellmon, at a Committee markup during the 94th Congress. 

The 1974 Act did not anticipate that the congressional budget 

process would be ready for full operation in 1975 for the FY1976 

budget cycle. Section 906 of the Act (88 Stat. 332), however, allowed the two Budget Committees to decide to implement a 

scaled-back version of the process, a so-called dry run, if they both 

agreed that to do so was feasible and submitted reports of such 

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16The report of the Senate Budget Committee on the agreement was Implementation of New Congressional Budget Procedures for Fiscal Year 1976, S. Rept. 94–27, Mar. 5, 1975; the report of the 

House Budget Committee, under the same title, was H. Rept. 94–25, Mar. 3, 1975. The Senate 

Budget Committee also issued a report with respect to a second budget resolution for that year, 

Implementation of New Congressional Budget Procedures for Fiscal Year 1976; Timetable for the Second Budget Resolution and Reconciliation Process, S. Rept. 94–422, Oct. 8, 1975. 17 See the report of the Senate Budget Committee, First Concurrent Resolution on the Budget—Fiscal 

Year 1976, S. Rept. 94–77, Apr. 15, 1975. The Committee issued Part 2 to the report on Apr. 

23 to provide the ‘‘Additional Views’’ of two Senators that inadvertently had been omitted. 

tees agreed that action on budget resolutions for FY1976 was feasible and issued the required reports on their agreement.16

The first budget resolution to be considered under the 1974 Act 

was reported by the House Budget Committee on April 14, 1975 

(H. Con. Res. 218), and by the Senate Budget Committee on 

April 15 (S. Con. Res. 32).17 The Senate considered S. Con. Res. 

32 on April 29 and April 30, and passed it on May 1, by a vote 

of 69 to 22. The House passed H. Con. Res. 218 on May 1, but 

only with a four-vote margin, 200 to 196. A conference report on 

H. Con. Res. 218 was filed on May 9 (H. Rept. 94–198 and S. 

Rept. 94–113), and the two Chambers agreed to it on May 14, 

1 day before the deadline prescribed by the 1974 Act (see table 

5). The Senate agreed to the conference report by a voice vote and 

the House agreed to it by a vote of 230 to 193. 

TABLE 5.—ANNUAL BUDGET RESOLUTIONS: FY1976–FY1985 1

Fiscal year Budget resolution Date adopted 

1976 ............ H. Con. Res. 218 ........................................................................... 05–14–1975 

1977 ............ S. Con. Res. 109 ........................................................................... 05–13–1976 

1978 ............ S. Con. Res. 19 ............................................................................. 05–17–1977 

1979 ............ S. Con. Res. 80 ............................................................................. 05–17–1978 

1980 ............ H. Con. Res. 107 ........................................................................... 05–24–1979 

1981 ............ H. Con. Res. 307 ........................................................................... 06–12–1980 

1982 ............ H. Con. Res. 115 ........................................................................... 05–21–1981 

1983 ............ S. Con. Res. 92 ............................................................................. 06–23–1982 

1984 ............ H. Con. Res. 91 ............................................................................. 06–23–1983 

1985 ............ H. Con. Res. 280 ........................................................................... 10–01–1984 

1 Excludes second budget resolutions for FY1976–FY1982 and a third budget resolution for FY1977. 

The text of the first budget resolution for FY1976, which under 

the dry run included only the budget aggregates and not the functional allocations of spending or other elements, read as follows: 

That the Congress hereby determines, pursuant to section 301(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, that for the fiscal year beginning on July 1, 

1975— 

(1) the appropriate level of total budget outlays is $367,000,000,000; 

42 

18This characterization was made in: Penner, Rudolph G. and Alan J. Abramson. Broken Purse 

Strings; Congressional Budgeting, 1974–88. The Urban Institute Press. (Washington: 1988), p. 23. 

(2) the appropriate level of total new budget authority is 

$395,800,000,000; 

(3) the amount of the deficit in the budget which is appropriate in the 

light of economic conditions and all other relevant factors is 

$68,820,000,000; 

(4) the recommended level of Federal revenues is $298,180,000,000, and 

the amount by which the aggregate level of Federal revenues should be decreased is $3,400,000,000; and 

(5) the appropriate level of the public debt is $617,600,000,000 and the 

amount by which the temporary statutory limit on such debt should accordingly be increased is $86,600,000,000. 

The second budget resolution for FY1976, H. Con. Res. 466, 

was approved by the House and Senate in the fall without difficulty. The measure also recommended budget aggregates for the 

3-month transition quarter (TQ) following FY1976, encompassing 

July 1–September 30, 1976. The transition quarter was necessary 

to accommodate the change in the fiscal year cycle, for FY1977 

and thereafter, mandated by the 1974 Act (FY1977 started on October 1, 1976). 

The first full run of the congressional budget process occurred 

in 1976 for the FY1977 budget cycle. Once again, the House and 

Senate adopted the first budget resolution for that year (S. Con. 

Res. 109), as well as the second budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 

139), in a timely manner and without significant difficulty. The 

margins of approval in the Senate for the first and second budget 

resolutions (65 to 29 and 66 to 20, respectively) reflected the pattern of strong bipartisanship on budget resolutions that marked 

the early years of the congressional budget process in that Chamber. For the first time in many years, all of the regular appropriations acts for the fiscal year were enacted on time. (Despite the 

timely enactment of the regular appropriations acts for FY1977, 

two continuing appropriations acts were required to fund certain 

unauthorized activities that had been dropped from one of the 

bills.) 

The congressional budget process continued to operate relatively 

smoothly for the next several years, with the two annual budget 

resolutions being adopted largely in a timely manner and, in the 

Senate, by comfortable margins. This period in congressional 

budgeting has been described as ‘‘the accommodating budgetary 

process,’’ in which the two Budget Committees often acquiesced 

in the preferences of the leadership and other committees, ‘‘accommodating to the predominant pressures for increased spending.’’ 18

Despite this generally accommodative behavior, there were differences in the operation of the two Budget Committees: 

43 

19 Penner and Abramson, ibid., p. 28. 20 P.L. 94–440 was signed into law by President Gerald Ford on October 1, 1976 (90 Stat. 

1439–1464). For Senate consideration of the Hollings-Bellmon amendment (number 428), and the 

Chiles-Domenici perfecting amendment, see the Congressional Record of September 8, 1976 at pp. 

29359–29366. Both amendments were adopted by voice vote. 

The Senate Budget Committee drew strength and some autonomy from its 

bipartisan approach and cohesiveness and from the less contentious atmosphere 

in the Senate. Chairman Edmund Muskie was fairly aggressive in testing and 

stretching the limits of the Committee’s original mandate by challenging other 

committees. Although Muskie and the Senate Budget Committee were not always successful in these fights, they often won larger margins in budget votes 

than the House Committee and were consequently seen as stronger than the 

House Committee.19

One of the early successes of the Budget Committee in seeking 

greater control over spending was the assumption of the repeal in 

1976 of the ‘‘1-percent kicker,’’ which since 1969 had annually 

boosted the inflation adjustment in Federal employee retirement 

benefits by an additional 1 percent whenever the underlying adjustment was at least 3 percent for 3 consecutive months. By some 

estimates, the kicker had raised Federal annuities by 72 percent 

between 1969 and 1975, compared to a 56-percent increase in inflation during the same period; in future years, the ‘‘multiplier effect’’ of the kicker was expected to add billions of dollars per year 

to Federal retirement costs beyond what was needed to keep pace 

with inflation. Repeal of the kicker, which had been assumed in 

the first budget resolution for FY1977, already had been included 

that year in acts for military and foreign service retirees, but was 

contingent upon repeal of the kicker for civilian retirees as well. 

In a bipartisan effort, Budget Committee members Ernest F. Hollings and Henry Bellmon successfully offered an amendment to repeal the kicker for Federal civilian employees to the Legislative 

Branch Appropriations Act for FY1977 (P.L. 94–440), thereby implementing repeal of the kicker in all Federal employee retirement 

programs. The Hollings-Bellmon amendment, as further amended 

by a perfecting amendment offered by Budget Committee members Lawton Chiles and Pete V. Domenici, was included in P.L. 

94–440 as Section 1306.20

Greater signs of budgetary strain began to emerge in 1980, the 

last year of the Carter administration, following a period of ‘‘stagflation’’ (the combination of stagnation and inflation) that had persisted in the economy during the late 1970s. With renewed concerns about rising deficit projections, Congress and the President 

worked together in the first use of the budget reconciliation process. Instead of a quick ‘‘last-minute’’ procedure to adjust budgetary 

legislation in conjunction with the adoption of the second budget 

resolution in the fall, reconciliation was reoriented as an adjunct 

to the first budget resolution. 

44 

The first budget resolution for FY1981, H. Con. Res. 307, 

which was not adopted by the House and Senate until June 12, 

1980 (nearly a month past the then May 15 deadline), included 

reconciliation instructions to eight House and nine Senate authorizing committees to reduce outlays for FY1981 by more than $6 

billion. In addition, the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees were instructed to raise revenues for FY1981 by 

more than $4 billion. The Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1980, 

signed into law on December 5, 1980, as P.L. 96–499, achieved 

most of the deficit reduction required by the budget resolution. 

The budget resolution also included budgetary levels for 2 ‘‘outyears’’ beyond the upcoming fiscal year, covering 3 fiscal years 

(FY1981–FY1983) all together (not counting revisions made for 

the fiscal year underway at that time, FY1980). The multiyear 

timeframe was intended to improve the budget resolution as a 

planning tool and to curb budget control evasions in the short 

term. The multiyear aspect of budget resolutions persisted in the 

following years as a matter of practice, and in 1985 was incorporated into the 1974 Act as a requirement. The Act presently requires a budget resolution to cover at least the upcoming fiscal 

year and the 4 following years, but some budget resolutions have 

covered up to 10 years (excluding revisions to the current fiscal 

year). 

The remaining 4 years of the first decade of the congressional 

budget process, covering 1981 through 1984, coincided with the 

first term of President Ronald Reagan and saw the Republicans 

gain control of the Committee. Senator Pete V. Domenici served 

as chairman of the Budget Committee during these 4 years. Senator Hollings served as ranking member in 1981 and 1982 (during the 97th Congress), and was succeeded by Senator Lawton 

Chiles in 1983 and 1984 (during the 98th Congress). 

Several important developments occurred during these 4 years. 

In 1981, President Reagan, aided by OMB Director David Stockman, urged the use of the budget reconciliation process to advance 

a sizeable portion of his legislative agenda. The Omnibus Budget 

Reconciliation Act of 1981, signed into law by President Reagan 

on August 13, 1981, as P.L. 97–35, represented a massive expansion of the reconciliation process. Most of the committees of the 

House and Senate were involved in the reconciliation process that 

year. Apart from cutting Federal spending by roughly 130 billion 

over a 3-year period (FY1982–FY1984), the reconciliation act also 

encompassed a host of extraneous policy issues, involving such diverse matters as lawnmower standards and a maximum speed 

45 

Signed into law by the President on August 13, 1981, H.R. 3982, the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981, was the second reconciliation act to pass the 

House and Senate and represented a significant expansion of the reconciliation 

process toward advancing certain policy goals. 


28749.032
46 

21Transcript, G. William Hoagland interview, August 30, 2006, U.S. Senate Historical Office. 

limit. Coupled with action on the reconciliation measure, Congress 

and the President also enacted a significant tax-cut bill outside of 

the reconciliation process (which reduced revenues by $282 billion 

over FY1982–FY1984). 

The first major challenge to this Committee began shortly after I arrived, when the 

Budget Committee took on a stronger policy role with Mr. David Stockman, Director 

of the OMB, and President Reagan, and particularly Mr. Stockman, who as a House 

Member understood this new process. While President Carter used reconciliation in the 

way it was probably meant to be used in the initial legislation, at the end of the 

calendar year, Mr. Stockman and the new Republican-controlled Senate pushed, for 

the first time in 7 years, with Senators Baker, Dole, and Domenici, using the reconciliation process as an opportunity to not only achieve the blueprint of a fiscal policy, 

but actually to carry through with the authorization process and have some real impact on policy.21

—G. William Hoagland, Senate Budget Committee Staff Director, 1986–2002 

The actions in 1981 marked the beginning of a period in which 

budgetary considerations dominated the legislative agenda. As deficit projections rose and remained stubbornly high, the focus of 

most budgetary deliberations was deficit reduction. The seeming 

intractability of budgetary problems often led to legislative gridlock and political impasse. As a consequence, the timeframe for 

reaching agreement on budget resolutions lengthened considerably. 

In both 1982 and 1983, the budget resolution was not adopted 

until June 23. In 1984, action on the budget resolution was not 

completed until October 1, the first day of the new fiscal year. 

Other changes in the legislative process occurred as well, including 

greater reliance on continuing appropriations acts and the reemergence of omnibus appropriations measures to wrap up action at the 

end of a session. 

When action under the regular procedures of the congressional 

budget process was stymied, the contending sides searched for innovative means to resolve conflict. One important development in 

this regard was the budget summit, where administration and congressional negotiators could work directly together to broker deals 

to resolve protracted disputes over budgetary policy. Some budget 

summits or other types of negotiations were successful, while others were not. One of the first agreements negotiated in summitlike circumstances, in 1984, led to what was known as the Rose 

Garden agreement. While the administration and Republican leaders in the Senate reached an agreement between themselves, it took 

many more months for Republicans and Democrats in Congress to 

47 

22A history of budget summits and other types of negotiations during the 1980s is presented 

in: Schick, Allen. The Capacity to Budget. The Urban Institute Press. (Washington: 1990), pp. 184– 

189. 23This discussion is drawn from CRS Report RL30795, General Management Laws: A Compendium, Clinton T. Brass (coordinator), pp. 109–114. A more detailed explanation of the 1985 Balanced 

Budget Act is found in CRS Report 85–1130 GOV, Explanation of the Balanced Budget and Emergency 

Deficit Control Act of 1985, Public Law 99–177 (The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act), by Allen Schick; 

and CRS Report 86–713 GOV, Changes in the Congressional Budget Process Made by the 1985 Balanced 

Budget Act (P.L. 99–177), by Robert Keith. 

reach accord and pass the FY1985 budget resolution, which occurred on October 1, 1984.22

Coping with Deficits: the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act 

and Related Laws 

During the 99th Congress (1985 and 1986), Senator Domenici 

continued to serve as the Committee chairman and Senator Chiles 

continued to serve as the ranking member, while President Reagan 

began his second term. In the 100th Congress (1987–1988), during the final 2 years of the Reagan Presidency, the Democrats 

gained control of the Senate. Senator Chiles took over as Committee chairman and Senator Domenici assumed the position of 

ranking member. 

In 1985, continuing turmoil over Federal budget policy brought 

another watershed development in the Federal budget process—enactment of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act. After a decade of 

experience with the 1974 Act, Congress and the President faced 

persistent high deficits and increasing budgetary deadlock. Legislation aimed at bringing the Federal budget into balance by the 

early 1990s was enacted. That legislation, the Balanced Budget 

and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, was included as Title 

II in a measure raising the public debt limit.23 President Reagan 

signed the measure into law on December 12 as P.L. 99–177 (2 

U.S.C. 901 et seq.; 99 Stat. 1037–1101). It is commonly referred 

to as the 1985 Balanced Budget Act or as the Gramm-RudmanHollings (GRH) Act, after its three primary sponsors in the Senate—Senators Phil Gramm, Warren Rudman, and Ernest F. Hollings. (Senator Hollings was a member of the Budget Committee 

in the 99th Congress, when the GRH Act was enacted, and Senators Gramm and Rudman served on the Committee in later Congresses.) 

The 1985 Act was the first of several major laws intended to 

ensure that the deficit was reduced and spending was controlled, 

even if Congress and the President failed to achieve these goals 

through the regular legislative process. Specifically, the 1985 Act 

required the Federal budget to be in balance by FY1991. 

The Act established new procedures involving deficit targets 

and sequestration to further these purposes. Under sequestration, 

48 

across-the-board spending cuts would be made automatically early 

in the fiscal year if needed to keep the estimated deficit within 

allowed limits. Discretionary spending would bear most of the 

brunt of any required sequestration, since most direct spending 

was exempt from reductions. Because implementation of a required 

sequester was automatic under these procedures, and perceived to 

be a drastic action, many regarded it as providing a strong incentive for Congress and the President to reach agreement through 

the regular process of legislation to meet the established budgetary 

goals. 

 The New Yorker Collection 1989 Robert Weber from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved. 

In addition, the 1985 Act also made extensive changes in the 

1974 Act, largely to incorporate in law changes in informal practices developed over prior years. First, the timetable for congressional budget actions was accelerated. Most notably, the deadline 

for adoption of the annual budget resolution was advanced 1 

month to April 15. Second, certain practices used by Congress for 

several years were formally incorporated into the 1974 Act, including the expansion of budget resolutions to cover 3 fiscal years and 

the authority to initiate reconciliation procedures in the April 

budget resolution. Third, enforcement procedures were tightened, 

including new restrictions on legislation linked to committee 


28749.040
49 

spending allocations under the budget resolution, a requirement in 

the Senate that three-fifths of Members ‘‘duly chosen and sworn’’ 

vote to waive certain budget act points of order, and a requirement 

that the recommended deficit in the budget resolution not exceed 

the applicable deficit target. Fourth, the reconciliation process was 

modified in several ways, including a ban against using reconciliation to make changes in the Social Security Program and requirements in the House and Senate that amendments to reconciliation 

measures be deficit-neutral. 

With regard to other changes in the Federal budget process, the 

1985 Act also required the President to submit an annual budget 

consistent with the deficit targets, placed existing off-budget entities on the budget, and placed the Social Security Program offbudget (except for calculating the deficit for purposes of sequestration). 

Several lawsuits contesting the constitutionality of the 1985 Act 

were filed immediately. On February 7, 1986, a special threejudge panel of the U.S. District Court declared that the procedure 

for triggering sequestration under the Act was unconstitutional on 

the grounds that it vested executive power in an officer removable 

by Congress. (Sequestration would have been triggered pursuant to 

a report prepared by the Comptroller General, head of the General 

Accounting Office.) Further, the Court declared that a sequestration order for FY1986, issued on February 1, 1986, was ‘‘without 

legal force and effect,’’ but stayed its judgment (as required by 

Section 274(e) of the Act) pending appeal to the Supreme Court. 

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case, Bowsher v. 

Synar (478 U.S. 714), on April 23, 1986, and issued its ruling 

later that year on July 7. Affirming the ruling of the District 

Court by a vote of 7 to 2, the Supreme Court noted: 

To permit an officer controlled by Congress to execute the laws would be, 

in essence, to permit a congressional veto. Congress could simply remove, or 

threaten to remove, an officer for executing the laws in any fashion found to 

be unsatisfactory to Congress. This kind of congressional control over the execution of the laws, Chadha makes clear, is constitutionally impermissible . . . . 

It is clear that Congress has consistently viewed the Comptroller General as an 

officer of the Legislative Branch. 

Anticipating the possibility of invalidation by the courts, Congress included ‘‘fallback procedures’’ in the Act, under which a 

Presidential sequestration order could be triggered upon the enactment of a joint resolution, reported by a Temporary Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, setting forth the contents of a joint 

report of the Directors of OMB and CBO. The Supreme Court 

stayed its judgment for 60 days in order to allow Congress time 

to implement sequestration for FY1986 under the fallback procedures, which Congress did. 

50 

Invalidation by the courts of the automatic triggering mechanism for sequestration and the size of the estimated deficit excess 

for FY1988 (more than $50 billion above the deficit target of 

$108 billion, according to CBO) prompted calls in 1987 for revision of the 1985 Act. Major revisions to the Act were enacted in 

1987, again as a title in a measure raising the public debt limit. 

President Reagan signed the measure into law on September 29, 

1987, as P.L. 100–119 (101 Stat. 754–788). Title I of this law 

is referred to as the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Reaffirmation Act of 1987. The main purposes of the 1987 

Act were to extend the timeframe for achieving a balanced budget 

by 2 years, to FY1993, by means of revised deficit targets, and 

to restore the automatic triggering feature of sequestration in a 

constitutionally acceptable manner (which it did by vesting that 

authority in the OMB Director). 

During the interim between the enactment of the 1985 Act and 

its significant revision in 1987, Congress enacted several measures 

that modified the sequestration process, for the most part exempting programs from the reductions. Most notably, the Omnibus 

Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986 (P.L. 99–509) exempted from 

sequestration the cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) of all Federal 

civilian and military retirement and disability programs so that 

they would be treated in the same manner as Social Security, 

which was already exempt from sequestration. 

Following enactment of the 1987 Act (and before significant 

changes made in 1990), Congress enacted several measures that 

further modified the sequestration process. In particular, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 (P.L. 100–203) made 

several technical changes in the 1985 Act, and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (P.L. 

101–73) exempted certain Federal financial entities from sequestration. 

The law which contained the 1987 Act, P.L. 100–119, also included related provisions (in Title II) that affected the congressional budget process, the impoundment control process, and other 

matters. With respect to the congressional budget process, the 

1974 Act was amended to clarify the application of time limits 

for the consideration of conference reports on budget resolutions 

and reconciliation measures, to require the House and Senate to 

use common economic and technical assumptions, to extend CBO 

duties under the State and Local Government Cost Estimate Act 

of 1981 indefinitely, and for other purposes. 

The impoundment portion of the 1974 Act was amended to 

codify the Appeals Court decision in City of New Haven v. United 

States regarding restrictions on the President’s deferral authority 

51 

24The Byrd rule is discussed in detail in CRS Report RL30862, The Budget Reconciliation Process: 

The Senate’s ‘‘Byrd Rule,’’ by Robert Keith. 

and to prohibit the resubmittal of rescission proposals that had 

been previously rejected by Congress. 

Ultimately, the 1985 Act, as amended, was critically viewed by 

some for its failure to achieve its principal objective, deficit reduction. During the period covering FY1986–FY1990, the actual deficit exceeded the deficit target every year. The overage ranged 

from about $5 billion to $205 billion and was greatest in the later 

years, despite the revision of the targets in 1987. Further, the 

manner in which the sequestration process operated and the stringency of the goals generally were perceived as fostering budgetary 

gimmickry and disruption in the legislative process. 

As a result of these concerns, the sequestration process and the 

rationale for it were fundamentally restructured by the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (discussed in the next section). 

Another change in Senate budget procedures was made at this 

time, apart from the changes made in the 1985 Act. During the 

first several years’ experience with reconciliation, the legislation 

contained many provisions that were extraneous to the purpose of 

implementing policies assumed in the budget resolution. The reconciliation submissions of committees included such things as provisions that had no budgetary effect, that increased spending or reduced revenues when the reconciliation instructions called for reduced spending or increased revenues, or that dealt with matters 

in another committee’s jurisdiction. 

Some Senators argued that such extraneous provisions, which 

could be quite contentious, had no place in reconciliation legislation, particularly in view of the restrictions on debate time and 

amendments that exist under reconciliation. In 1985 and 1986, 

the Senate adopted the Byrd rule, named after its principal sponsor, Senator Robert C. Byrd, on a temporary basis as a means of 

curbing these practices.24 The Byrd rule was extended and modified several times over the years, and, in 1990, it was incorporated 

into the 1974 Act as Section 313 (2 U.S.C. 644) and made permanent. 

The House and Senate were able to reach final agreement on the 

annual budget resolutions for FY1986–FY1989, although in each 

case it took additional weeks or months beyond the prescribed 

deadline to complete action on the measures (see table 6). 

52 

25 Information on the budgetary impact of P.L. 101–508 was provided by the Congressional 

Budget Office in The Economic and Budget Outlook: Fiscal Years 1992–1996, January 1991, Table III– 

3, p. 66. 

TABLE 6.—ANNUAL BUDGET RESOLUTIONS: FY1986–FY1989 

Fiscal year Budget resolution Date adopted 

1986 ............ S. Con. Res. 32 ............................................................................. 08–01–1985 

1987 ............ S. Con. Res. 120 ........................................................................... 06–27–1986 

1988 ............ H. Con. Res. 93 ............................................................................. 06–24–1987 

1989 ............ H. Con. Res. 268 ........................................................................... 06–06–1988 

Moving Toward Balance: Budget Enforcement Laws in 

the 1990s and the Emergence of Surpluses 

For the next three Congresses, from 1989 through 1994, the 

Senate Budget Committee operated under Democratic leadership. 

During the 101st Congress (1989–1990), Senator Jim Sasser assumed the chairmanship of the Budget Committee and Senator 

Domenici continued to serve as the ranking member. President 

George H.W. Bush began his term. Senators Sasser and Domenici 

continued to serve as chairman and ranking member, respectively, 

in the 102nd Congress (1991–1992), during the final 2 years of 

the George H.W. Bush Presidency, and in the 103rd Congress 

(1993–1994), during the first half of President William J. Clinton’s first term. 

Perhaps the single most important development in terms of the 

budget process during the early part of this period was the enactment of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 (OBRA 

1990), signed into law by President Bush on November 5, 1990, 

as P.L. 101–508 (104 Stat. 1388, 1–630). In addition to dramatically reshaping Federal budget policy with approximately $482 

billion in deficit reduction over 5 years (including $158 billion in 

revenue increases and $324 billion in spending cuts and debt service savings), the 1990 Act included extensive revisions in budget 

procedure in a title (Title XIII) referred to as the Budget Enforcement Act.25 The FY1991 budget resolution, H. Con. Res. 310, 

which included the reconciliation instructions that led to the enactment of P.L. 101–508, was the first budget resolution in years 

to envision attaining a balanced budget a few years out. In fact, 

the budget resolution envisioned a surplus of more than $150 billion by the fifth year (FY1995). 

53 

Courtesy of the family of Jim Sasser. 

Chairman Jim Sasser, House Budget Committee Chairman Leon Panetta, and 

Ranking Member Bill Frenzel at a budget resolution conference during the 

101st Congress. 

As is often the case with important legislation, the enactment 

of OBRA 1990 occurred in response to significant budgetary and 

economic challenges and followed a difficult legislative path. Several months after submitting his budget for FY1991, President 

Bush faced revised projections that showed a steep increase in the 

deficit if no legislative action was taken, which threatened to trigger a sequester under the GRH Act of about $100 billion toward 

the end of the year. In early May 1990, his representatives entered 

into budget summit negotiations with congressional leaders over 

a budget plan, which did not conclude until September 30. The 

summit was informally known as the Andrews summit because the 

negotiations were held at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, a 

short distance from Washington, DC. 

In order to obtain a budget agreement that sufficiently met the 

budgetary challenges, President Bush abandoned an earlier pledge 

of ‘‘no new taxes.’’ On June 26, 1990, President Bush issued a 

statement that he and congressional negotiators concurred that any 

bipartisan budget agreement would involve tax increases and 

should include budget process reform ‘‘to assure that any Bipartisan agreement is enforceable and that the deficit problem is 

brought under responsible control.’’ 


28749.022
54 

In early October, the House initially rejected the FY1991 budget resolution, which was based on the budget agreement, and 

President Bush vetoed a continuing appropriations act (causing a 

partial government shutdown for several days) in order to increase 

pressure to support the agreement. These obstacles were overcome 

and, within another month, OBRA 1990, which implemented the 

major elements of the budget agreement, was enacted into law. 

The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (BEA 1990) made numerous and significant changes in the Federal budget process by 

amending several laws, primarily the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. The main purpose of these 

changes, which revised the sequestration process established by the 

1985 Act and altered other facets of the budget process, was to 

ensure that the substantial deficit savings of several measures enacted in 1990, particularly OBRA 1990, were maintained over the 

5-year timeframe of the legislation (covering FY1991–FY1995). 

BEA 1990, and later laws, changed the sequestration process 

substantially. The Act effectively replaced the fixed Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit targets with two new budget enforcement 

procedures. First, adjustable limits were established for separate 

categories of discretionary spending. Second, ‘‘pay-as-you-go’’ 

(paygo) procedures were created to require that increases in direct 

spending or decreases in revenues due to legislative action be offset 

so that there would be no net increase in the deficit. Violations 

of the discretionary limits or the pay-as-you-go requirement would 

be enforced through sequestration. Further, BEA 1990 retained the 

exemption of Social Security from cuts under sequestration, and removed the trust fund surpluses from the deficit estimates and 

other sequestration calculations under the Act as well. 

The revised deficit targets, as initially set by BEA 1990, were 

substantially larger than earlier targets because they excluded the 

surpluses of the Social Security trust funds and reflected revised 

economic and technical assumptions. For example, the deficit target for FY1991 was set at $327 billion, and the deficit target for 

FY1995 was set at $83 billion. The President was required to adjust the deficit targets for FY1991–FY1995, to reflect updated 

economic and technical assumptions and changes in budgetary 

concepts and definitions, as applicable, in his annual budget for 

FY1992 and FY1993. Further, he was authorized to adjust the 

deficit targets for FY1994 and FY1995 to reflect updated economic and technical assumptions, when he submitted his budget 

for these fiscal years. (President Clinton chose to use this authority, and made such adjustments in the deficit targets, thereby 

avoiding any sequesters due to violations of the deficit targets.) 

55 

BEA 1990 retained sequestration as the means of enforcing the 

discretionary spending limits and the paygo requirement. Like the 

earlier deficit sequestration procedures, the new sequestration procedures were automatic and were triggered by a report from the 

OMB Director. 

The discretionary spending limits established by BEA 1990 varied in type over the period covered. For FY1991–FY1993, separate 

limits were set for new budget authority and outlays for three different categories—defense, international, and domestic. For 

FY1994–FY1995, the limits on new budget authority and outlays 

were established for a single category—total discretionary spending. 

Under the paygo process created by BEA 1990, the multiyear 

budget effects of enacted legislation changing direct spending, or 

legislation changing revenues, were recorded on a cumulative 

paygo ‘‘scorecard.’’ After the end of each congressional session, any 

balance (or net deficit increase) on the paygo scorecard for the new 

fiscal year was required to be eliminated through a special sequestration procedure. If a sequester under this process was required, 

it was required to occur within 15 calendar days after Congress 

adjourned at the end of a session and on the same day as any sequestration tied to enforcement of the discretionary spending limits (or, in earlier years, the deficit targets). 

Emergency provisions were not required to be offset and were 

effectively exempt from sequestration under both the discretionary 

spending limits and the paygo requirement, so long as an emergency designation was made by the President, and the Congress 

concurred by so designating in the applicable act. Except for emergency spending associated with the Persian Gulf war (Operations 

Desert Shield/Desert Storm) in 1990–1991, the use of such spending was relatively modest in the early and mid-1990s. The escalation of emergency spending in later years, however, made the use 

of such spending oftentimes controversial. 

The enforcement procedures for the paygo requirement, on the 

one hand, and the discretionary spending limits, on the other, 

were separated by a ‘‘firewall.’’ Savings made on one side of the 

firewall could not be used to the advantage of programs on the 

other side. 

The sequestration procedures established under the 1985 Act, as 

modified by BEA 1990, were further modified and extended by 

several other laws, and were meant to preserve budget savings 

made under agreements reached by Congress and President Clinton 

in 1993 and 1997 and to establish new program categories for enforcement. 

In 1993, Congress and President Clinton reached a comprehensive budget agreement that included the enactment of reconciliVerDate jan 13 2004 11:54 May 09, 2007 Jkt 028749 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 5935 Sfmt 5935 C:\DOCS\BUDGET\28749.TXT CRS1 PsN: SKAYNE
56 

26 Information on alternative measures of the budgetary impact of P.L. 103–66 was provided by 

the Congressional Budget Office in The Economic and Budget Outlook: An Update, September 1993, 

Table 2–2, p. 29 and Box 2–3, pp. 34–35. Electronically accessible at: http://www.cbo.gov/publications. 27Aug. 5, conference report agreed to in House (218 to 216) by roll call vote 406 (139 CR 

19438); Aug. 6, conference report agreed to in Senate (51 to 50) by record vote 247 (139 CR 

19871). 28Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1993, ibid., p. 107. 

ation legislation achieving $496 billion in deficit reduction over 

5 years (including $241 billion in revenue increases and $255 billion in spending cuts and debt service savings).26 That measure, 

the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1993, was 

signed into law on August 10, 1993, as P.L. 103–66 (107 Stat. 

312–685). Action on OBRA 1993 was motivated by concern 

about the deficit, which for FY1992 reached $290 billion and had 

become a prominent issue during the 1992 Presidential campaign. 

The conference report on OBRA 1993 was adopted by a narrow 

margin (by a vote of 218 to 216 in the House and 51 to 50 in 

the Senate, with Vice President Albert Gore breaking the tie), 

with no Republican Member supporting it in either Chamber.27

The Act reflected compromises between the President and Congress: 

As Clinton had proposed, most of the tax revenue came from the wealthiest 

taxpayers, and the spending cuts resulted largely from cutbacks in defense, overall limits on appropriated spending and reductions in the growth of Medicare 

payments to doctors and hospitals. But the battle over the bill forced Clinton 

to give up other major features—most notably, his proposal for a $71.5 billion 

tax on almost all forms of energy. The bill also contained less spending than 

Clinton sought for social programs, such as food stamps and the earned-income 

tax credit, and for ‘investment’ programs that he hoped would stimulate economic growth.28

As part of the agreement, the procedures under BEA 1990 were 

extended for 3 more fiscal years, through FY1998. The extension 

was included as Title XIV (Budget Process Provisions) of OBRA 

of 1993. 

In 1994, separate sequestration procedures for discretionary programs associated with the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund 

were added and funded by annual appropriations by Title XXXI 

of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 

(P.L. 103–322). 

During the 6-year period ending in 1994, five of the budget 

resolutions were adopted by the House and Senate in a fairly timely manner. The exception was the budget resolution for FY1991, 

which was not adopted until October 9, 1990, following the conclusion of the Andrews summit (see table 7). 

57 

TABLE 7.—ANNUAL BUDGET RESOLUTIONS: FY1990–FY1995 

Fiscal year Budget resolution Date adopted 

1990 ............ H. Con. Res. 106 ........................................................................... 05–18–1989 

1991 ............ H. Con. Res. 310 ........................................................................... 10–09–1990 

1992 ............ H. Con. Res. 121 ........................................................................... 05–22–1991 

1993 ............ H. Con. Res. 287 ........................................................................... 05–21–1992 

1994 ............ H. Con. Res. 64 ............................................................................. 04–01–1993 

1995 ............ H. Con. Res. 218 ........................................................................... 05–12–1994 

At the beginning of the 104th Congress, in 1995, the Republicans regained control of the Senate (as well as the House), and 

Senator Domenici again was selected to chair the Budget Committee. The ranking member during the 104th Congress was Senator J. James Exon. Senator Domenici continued to serve as chairman of the Budget Committee in the 105th and 106th Congresses 

(1997–2000), through the end of the Clinton Presidency. Senator 

Frank R. Lautenberg succeeded Senator Exon as ranking member 

in the 105th Congress, and continued to serve in that capacity 

during the 106th Congress. 

In 1995, the new Republican majorities in the House and Senate forged agreement on a budget resolution for FY1996 calling 

for a balanced budget in 7 years, by FY2002. The budget resolution assumed the enactment of sizeable tax cuts, which would be 

more than offset by reductions in discretionary spending and in 

Medicare, Medicaid, and other mandatory spending programs. 

President Clinton also endorsed balancing the budget, but differed 

from the Republican-controlled Congress on how to achieve that 

goal. 

In November 1995, the first of a series of government shutdowns occurred when Congress and President Clinton could not 

agree on a continuing appropriation act for FY1996. On December 

6, President Clinton vetoed a reconciliation measure, referred to as 

the Balanced Budget Act of 1995 (H.R. 2491), which was the 

main legislative vehicle for implementing congressional budget 

policies. In his veto message, the President indicated that the 

measure would have made cuts that he found unacceptable to 

Medicare, Medicaid, student loans, and other programs. 

Following a longer government shutdown (from mid-December 

1995 until January 6, 1996), the standoff between the President 

and Congress eventually came to an end when they agreed to a 

new continuing resolution. On January 9, 1996, President Clinton 

submitted a proposal to Congress for a projected balanced budget 

by FY2002, which recommended various tax cuts, tax increases, 

58 

29 Deficit Reduction and Balanced Budget by Fiscal Year 2002; Message From the President of the United 

States, H. Doc. 104–160, Pt. 1 and 2, Jan. 9, 1996. 

and reductions in mandatory spending to achieve this goal.29 The 

five remaining regular appropriation acts for FY1996 were incorporated into a single appropriation act, the Omnibus Consolidated 

Rescissions and Appropriations Act of 1996, which President Clinton signed into law as P.L. 104–134 on April 26, 1996 (see table 

8). 

TABLE 8.—ANNUAL BUDGET RESOLUTIONS: FY1996–FY2001 

Fiscal year Budget resolution Date adopted 

1996 ............ H. Con. Res. 67 ............................................................................. 06–29–1995 

1997 ............ H. Con. Res. 178 ........................................................................... 06–13–1996 

1998 ............ H. Con. Res. 84 ............................................................................. 06–05–1997 

1999 ............ no conference agreement 1

2000 ............ H. Con. Res. 68 ............................................................................. 04–15–1999 

2001 ............ H. Con. Res. 290 ........................................................................... 04–13–2000 

1 The Senate version of the FY1999 budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 86 (105th), passed the Senate on 

April 2, 1998. 

Pursuant to the budget resolution for FY1998, Congress successfully completed action on a pair of reconciliation measures, the 

Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (P.L. 105–33) and the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (P.L. 105–34). The FY1998 budget resolution, 

H. Con. Res. 84, was the third consecutive budget resolution that 

projected a modest surplus by FY2002. Taken together, the 1997 

reconciliation acts reduced the deficit by $118 billion over 5 years. 

Unlike the reconciliation measures enacted in 1990 and 1993, 

which included significant revenue increases as part of the overall 

deficit-reduction policies, the 1997 measures included tax cuts of 

$80 billion (which were more than offset by spending reductions 

and debt-service savings of $198 billion). 

During the 6-year period covering the 104th–106th Congresses 

(1995–2000), the House and Senate compiled a mixed record in 

the timely adoption of budget resolutions, with the first three 

adopted behind schedule and the last two adopted on time. In addition, in 1998, the House and Senate for the first time did not 

reach final agreement on a budget resolution. The Senate passed 

the FY1999 budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 86, on April 2, 1998. 

On June 5, the House passed its version of the budget resolution, 

H. Con. Res. 284. The two Chambers, however, were not able to 

reconcile their differences over budget policy. 

59 

The long-sought balance in the Federal budget materialized 

more quickly than expected, well before the FY2002 target set 

forth in the budget resolutions for FY1996–FY1998. For the first 

time since FY1969, when the Federal Government ran a surplus 

of $3 billion, the Federal budget ran a surplus for FY1998, 

amounting to $69 billion. Even larger surpluses occurred for 

FY1999 ($126 billion) and FY2000 ($236 billion), before declining in FY2001 to $128 billion. 

Courtesy of the U.S. Committee on the Budget. 

Pete Domenici, the Committee’s longest serving chairman, and then-ranking 

member, J. James Exon, during the May 9, 1996 markup for the FY1997 

budget resolution. 

Significant modifications to the sequestration process were made 

by the Budget Enforcement Act (BEA) of 1997, which was included as Title X of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. The procedural changes were intended largely to preserve the deficit reduction achieved by the two reconciliation acts so as to achieve budgetary balance several years in the future. 

BEA 1997 extended the discretionary spending limits and payas-you-go requirement through FY2002, modified their application, and made various ‘‘housekeeping’’ and technical changes. 

New categories were established for defense and nondefense discretionary spending for FY1998 and FY1999; for FY2000–FY2002, 


28749.033
60 

all discretionary spending was merged into a single, general purpose category (except for the separate violent crime reduction category in effect through FY2000). In 1998, the discretionary 

spending limits and associated sequestration procedures were 

changed again, in this instance by the Transportation Equity Act 

for the 21st Century (TEA–21; P.L. 105–178), in order to establish separate discretionary spending limits for highway and mass 

transit programs. In 2000, Section 801(a) of the Interior Appropriations Act for FY2001 established separate discretionary spending limits for FY2002–FY2006 under a new category for conservation spending and six related subcategories. 

From their inception in 1990, the discretionary spending limits 

were adjusted at several points during the year for various factors 

set in law, including changes in budgetary concepts and definitions, emergency requirements, and special allowances. Factors 

upon which adjustments were based changed from time to time. 

BEA 1990, for example, provided for an adjustment due to 

changes in inflation, but this adjustment was removed by BEA 

1997. 

Congressional Budgeting in the 21st Century 

The 6 most recent years of the congressional budget process, 

covering the 107th Congress through the 109th Congress (2001– 

2006), coincided with the first term and half of the second term 

of President George W. Bush. As the 107th Congress got underway, party control of the Senate, and therefore the chairmanship 

of the Budget Committee, changed several times. 

From the convening of the 107th Congress on January 3, 2001, 

until the inauguration of President Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney 17 days later on January 20, the Senate was evenly 

divided between the two parties (with 50 Democratic and 50 Republican Senators). Democrats held the majority, however, due to 

the deciding vote of outgoing Democratic Vice President Albert 

Gore. During this period, Senator Kent Conrad served as chairman 

and Senator Pete V. Domenici served as ranking member of the 

Budget Committee (see table 9). Beginning on January 20, the 

evenly-divided Senate came under the control of the Republicans 

due to the deciding vote of Vice President Cheney. 

Accordingly, the Committee leadership positions of Senators 

Conrad and Domenici were reversed, effective with Committee assignments announced on January 25. Finally, on May 24, 2001, 

Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont switched his party affiliation 

from Republican to Independent and began to caucus with the 

Democrats, effective June 6, 2001. At that point, the 50 Democratic Senators, plus Senator Jeffords, held a 51 to 49 advantage 

61 

over the Republicans, and the positions of Senators Conrad and 

Domenici were reversed again, effective with Committee assignments announced on July 10. Senator Conrad served as chairman 

and Senator Domenici served as ranking member for the remainder 

of the 107th Congress. 

TABLE 9.—COMMITTEE LEADERSHIP: 107TH–109TH CONGRESSES 

107th Congress (2001–2002) ..................... Chairman, Kent Conrad (D), (January 3–January 25, 

2001 and July 10, 2001 through 2002) 

Chairman, Pete V. Domenici (R), (January 25–July 

10, 2001) 

Ranking Member, Kent Conrad (D), (January 25– 

July 10, 2001) 

Ranking Member, Pete V. Domenici (R) (January 3– 

January 25, 2001 and July 10, 2001 through 

2002) 

108th Congress (2003–2004) ..................... Chairman, Don Nickles (R) 

Ranking Member, Kent Conrad (D) 

109th Congress (2005–2006) ..................... Chairman, Judd Gregg (R) 

Ranking Member, Kent Conrad (D) 

In 2003, the 108th Congress commenced with the Republicans 

in control of the Senate. Senator Pete V. Domenici decided to assume chairmanship of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources 

Committee, and Senator Don Nickles became chairman of the 

Budget Committee. Senator Conrad assumed the position of ranking member. The Republicans retained Senate control in the 109th 

Congress, during 2005 and 2006. In 2004, Senator Don Nickles 

retired from the Senate, and Senator Judd Gregg assumed the 

chairmanship. Senator Conrad remained as ranking member during 

the 109th Congress. 

From the outset, President Bush made tax reductions the centerpiece of his budget policy. Congress responded to the President’s 

revenue proposals, with significant modifications, largely through 

the enactment of reconciliation measures in 2001 (the Economic 

Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, P.L. 107–16) 

and 2003 (the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 

2003, P.L. 108–27). 

After 4 years of surpluses, the Federal Government recorded a 

deficit of $158 billion for FY2002, which climbed to $413 billion 

for FY2004 before falling to $318 billion for FY2005 and to $248 

billion for FY2006. 

BEA 1990, and the related laws that followed it, generally were 

regarded as having been more successful than the 1985 Act (as 

62 

amended) in controlling aggregate budget levels. During the period that the discretionary spending limits and the paygo requirement were in effect, the status of the Federal budget changed from 

relatively large deficits to 4 years of surpluses (1998–2001). 

Beginning in 1999 and 2000, however, criticisms of the BEA 

procedures began to mount. While the threat of sequestration was 

viewed initially as giving the President and Congress a strong incentive to reach agreement on their budgetary goals, thereby 

avoiding the legislative deadlock that characterized the early 

1980s, some Members began to regard the BEA procedures as an 

impediment to implementing desired budget policy in an era of 

large surpluses. These Members argued that the BEA procedures 

should be eliminated, or at least substantially modified, so that 

Congress and the President could ‘‘use’’ part of the surplus for tax 

cuts and new spending that otherwise would have been prohibited. 

Further, some Members asserted that discretionary spending 

limits for FY2000–FY2002 were unrealistically low, thereby promoting the use of budget ‘‘gimmicks,’’ such as the excessive designation of emergency spending, to evade their constraints. In 

2000, the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act for FY2001, 

P.L. 106–429, raised the FY2001 discretionary spending limit for 

that year by $96 billion in new budget authority. In 2001, the 

Defense Appropriations Act for FY2002, P.L. 107–117, raised the 

FY2002 discretionary spending limit for that year by $135 billion 

in new budget authority. In 1999, 2000, and 2001, legislation enacted into law required the OMB Director to change the balance 

on the paygo scorecard for certain years to zero. These actions by 

Congress and the President successfully prevented discretionary 

spending or paygo sequesters from occurring in those years. Some 

have argued that the paygo discipline may have been a deterrent 

to proposals that would have increased the deficit without an offset. 

The discretionary spending limits under the BEA expired on 

September 30, 2002. In late 2002, the paygo scorecard was set at 

zero for FY2003 and each year thereafter through FY2006 by P.L. 

107–312, thereby removing more than $100 billion in balances 

each year from the scorecard and preventing any future paygo sequesters. Consequently, the statutory enforcement mechanisms did 

not extend past the end of the 107th Congress. 

During the 108th and 109th Congresses, the Senate and the 

House wrestled with the issue of whether the expired BEA procedures should be restored or new budget constraints should be enacted. Considerable attention was focused on enforcement issues 

between June and October 2002 as the Senate addressed the need 

63 

30 For the text and discussion of the Gregg-Feingold amendment (number 3687), see pp. S5005– 

S5015 in the Congressional Record (daily ed.) of June 5, 2002. The Gregg-Feingold amendment fell 

on a point of order after a motion to waive the point of order was rejected on a 49 to 49 vote 

(roll call vote 133). For the text and discussion of the Daschle amendment (number 3764), see pp. 

S5015–S5022 and S5114–S5120 in the Congressional Record (daily ed.) of June 5 and 6, 2002, respectively. The amendment fell, after cloture had been invoked, on a point of order that it was nongermane. 31 For the text of the Feingold amendment (number 3915), as perfected by a modified ReidConrad amendment #3916, and its discussion, see pp. S5808–S5821 in the Congressional Record (daily 

ed.) of June 20, 2002. 32 See the consideration of S. Res. 304 in the Congressional Record (daily ed.) of Oct. 16, 2002, 

at pp. S10527–S10531 and p. S10553. Also, see ‘‘In Late Deal, Senate Approves by Voice Vote 

Renewing Expiring Budget Enforcement Rules,’’ by Bud Newman in BNA’s Daily Report for Executives, Oct. 17, 2002. 

to extend certain other budget enforcement procedures slated to 

expire. 

On June 5, 2002, during consideration of an emergency supplemental appropriations act (H.R. 4775), the Senate rejected a 

Gregg-Feingold amendment, which would have extended certain 

budget enforcement procedures through FY2007. The next day, on 

June 6, a Daschle amendment, an extension of certain budget enforcement procedures through FY2007, also failed.30 On June 20, 

during consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 

2514), the Senate rejected a Feingold amendment, as perfected by 

a modified Reid-Conrad amendment.31 It fell on a point of order 

when a motion to waive the point of order was rejected on a 59 

to 40 vote, 1 short of the required 60 affirmative votes (roll call 

vote 159). The Feingold amendment, as perfected, would have extended the discretionary spending limits through FY2004 and certain other budget enforcement procedures through FY2007. 

On September 18, 2002, Senate Budget Committee Chairman 

Kent Conrad and Ranking Member Pete V. Domenici sent a letter 

to Majority Leader Daschle urging action on a resolution extending the Senate’s pay-as-you-go point of order and the three-fifths 

vote requirement for certain waivers of the 1974 Act. Majority 

Leader Daschle confirmed that the Senate would consider such legislation before adjournment. On October 16, the Senate considered 

S. Res. 304, a measure introduced earlier in the session encouraging the Senate Appropriations Committee to report the regular 

appropriations bills for FY2003 by July 31, 2002. The Senate 

agreed to the resolution by unanimous consent, after adopting by 

unanimous consent a Conrad amendment, a substitute amendment 

extending the Senate’s pay-as-you-go point of order and the threefifths vote requirement for certain waivers of the 1974 Act 

through April 15, 2003.32 The Senate resolution, because it is not 

a law, could not extend the statutory discretionary spending limits 

and the statutory pay-as-you-go enforcement procedure. 

64 

 2001, The Washington Post. Photo by Ray Lustig. Reprinted with Permission. 

Chairman Kent Conrad refers to charts during the January 23, 2002 hearing 

on the FY2003 budget and economic outlook. 

In the absence of the expired statutory enforcement mechanisms, 

the two Chambers have relied on the existing budget procedures 

under the 1974 Act, as well as procedural mechanisms in annual 

budget resolutions, to enforce budget policy. In the case of mechanisms in annual budget resolutions used for enforcement by the 

Senate, the provisions have dealt with several key enforcement 

issues, including: • The Senate’s ‘‘pay-as-you-go’’ (paygo) point of order.— Under the current paygo point of order, in effect since 2003, 

when Congress adopts a budget resolution, it simultaneously 

establishes (in the Senate only) a scorecard that sets out the 

total amount of deficit change assumed in the budget resolution. This is sometimes referred to as post-policy paygo. The 

scorecard, as maintained by the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is used to compare the budgetary effects of direct spending and revenue legislation against those balances. 

As with previous incarnations of the paygo point of order in 

the Senate, the current rule covers the first year, and the first 

5 years (required to be included in the budget resolution), as 

well as the 5-year period after the first 5 years. First established in the FY1994 budget resolution, the point of order 

has been modified several times over the years, and there is 


28749.036
65 

considerable controversy over whether it should be retained as 

is or returned to its initial form, which required that new 

mandatory spending or new tax cuts be offset or get 60 votes. 

• Discretionary spending limits.—Limits on discretionary 

new budget authority and outlays, enforceable only in the 

Senate, have been carried in recent budget resolutions, initially to supplement the statutory limits on discretionary 

spending, and later to replace them (to some extent) after 

they had expired. The statutory limits for FY2001, for example, were enforced on the basis of several categories for outlays, but all discretionary new budget authority fell under a 

single category. Section 207 of H. Con. Res. 290, the 

FY2001 budget resolution, further divided total discretionary 

new budget authority for that year into defense and nondefense categories. The FY2006 budget resolution, H. Con. 

Res. 95, set forth (in Section 404) discretionary spending 

limits for 3 years—FY2006, FY2007, and FY2008. The following year, a deeming resolution for FY2007 (contained in 

the Iraq-Afghanistan-Hurricane Supplemental Appropriations 

Act, P.L. 109–234), effectively eliminated the limits for 

FY2006, FY2007, and FY2008, and provided an allocation to 

the Senate Appropriations Committee of $873 billion in new 

discretionary budget authority for FY2007, a level consistent 

with the President’s discretionary spending request for that 

year. 

• Procedures for emergency spending.—The House and Senate have provided in recent budget resolutions procedures for 

the designation of items in appropriations acts, direct spending measures, and revenue legislation as emergencies, thereby 

exempting them from various budget enforcement mechanisms. In providing such a procedure in Section 402 of the 

FY2007 Senate-passed budget resolution (which was made effective by Section 7035 of P.L. 109–234), for example, the 

Senate has chosen to create a point of order against nondefense emergency designations in legislation and to establish 

criteria for determining what constitutes an emergency, 

among other things. 

• Restrictions on advance appropriation.—Advance appropriations, which are provided in an annual appropriation act 

for a fiscal year beyond the fiscal year to which the act applies, have been used for many years. The amount of such appropriations escalated sharply in recent years to more than 

$20 billion annually. In view of concerns that to some degree 

this escalation might reflect an evasion of budget control, recent budget resolutions have included restrictions on the use 

66 

of advance appropriations. Section 401 of the FY2006 budget 

resolution, for example, barred the consideration of measures 

providing advance appropriations for FY2007 and FY2008, 

except for accounts specifically identified in the joint managers’ statement accompanying the budget resolution, and 

subject to an overall cap of $23.258 billion in each year. 

• Limitation on long-term spending proposals in the Senate.—One of the newest innovations in budget enforcement 

was the inclusion of a limitation on long-term spending proposals in the FY2006 budget resolution (in Section 407). The 

provision, aimed mainly at curtailing the expansion of new 

entitlements through legislative action (total entitlement 

spending already increases each year under existing law), established a point of order against a measure providing a net 

increase in direct spending of more than $5 billion in any of 

four 10-year periods covering FY2016–FY2055. 

All of the mechanisms discussed above are enforced by points 

of order. Like most of the points of order established in the 1974 

Act, the points of order carried in budget resolutions generally 

may be waived by the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the membership (60 Senators, if no seats are vacant). At the present time, 

the Senate’s paygo point of order remains in effect through September 30, 2008, and three-fifths waiver requirements generally 

were extended through September 30, 2010, by Section 403(a) of 

the FY2006 budget resolution (H. Con. Res. 95). 

In 2005, in action on the FY2006 budget resolution, the House 

and Senate agreed to use the budget reconciliation process to reduce the growth of mandatory spending by about $38 billion over 

5 years. This was the first time that reconciliation had been used 

to reduce spending since 1997. Although congressional efforts carried over into 2006, Congress and the President ultimately enacted 

the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which became P.L. 109–171. 

In addition, the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 

2005 (P.L. 109–222), a $70 billion revenue reduction measure to 

renew expiring tax cuts and to make other changes in tax law, also 

was enacted under reconciliation procedures stemming from the 

FY2006 budget resolution. Opponents argue that, taken together, 

the two acts increased the deficit by about $32 billion over 5 

years. 

During the 6 most recent years of the congressional budget 

process, the House and Senate were unable to reach final agreement on the budget resolutions for FY2003, FY2005, and 

FY2007, but the other three budget resolutions were adopted in 

a fairly timely manner. 

67 

The FY2003 budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 100, was reported 

by the Budget Committee on March 22, 2002, but was not considered on the Senate floor. In 2002, the House and Senate were 

controlled by different parties. In 2004, a conference agreement 

was reported on the FY2005 budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 95. 

The House agreed to the conference report on May 19, 2004, but 

the Senate did not consider it. In 2006, the House and Senate each 

passed their own versions of the FY2007 budget resolution (S. 

Con. Res. 83 and H. Con. Res. 376), but no conference was held 

to resolve the differences between the two Chambers. 

The inability of the House and Senate to reach final agreement 

on budget resolutions for these 3 years, and previously for 

FY1999, compelled the Budget Committees to develop innovative 

means of maintaining budget discipline for those budget cycles. In 

these instances, a device referred to as a ‘‘deeming resolution’’ was 

used by one or both Houses to establish enforceable budget levels 

(for discretionary spending because the budget resolution only provides a 1-year allocation for appropriations). Multiyear levels for 

revenues and direct spending set in the prior year’s budget resolution remain in effect and afford some measure of budget discipline. 

The term ‘‘deeming resolution’’ is not officially defined, nor is 

there any specific statute or rule authorizing such legislation. Instead, the use of a deeming resolution simply represents the House 

and Senate employing legislative procedures to deal with the issue 

on an ad hoc basis. 

The form and content of a deeming resolution is not prescribed, 

so it may be shaped to meet the particular needs at hand. For example, the House and Senate have used simple resolutions as the 

legislative vehicle in the past, but a deeming resolution may be 

incorporated into a bill, such as an annual appropriations act, as 

a single provision. At a minimum, deeming resolutions have provided new spending allocations to the Appropriations Committees, 

but they also may provide new aggregate budget levels, revise 

spending allocations to other House and Senate committees, or 

provide for other budget enforcement mechanisms. 

For FY1999, the first year the two Chambers did not reach final 

agreement on a budget resolution, the Senate adopted two deeming resolutions (S. Res. 209 on April 2, 1998 and S. Res. 312 on 

October 21, 1998), and the House included deeming provisions in 

two resolutions adopted (H. Res. 477 on June 19, 1998 and H. 

Res. 5 on January 6, 1999). For FY2003, the House adopted on 

May 22, 2002 a deeming resolution provision in H. Res. 428, a 

special rule for H.R. 4775, a supplemental appropriations act. The 

Senate adopted S. Res. 304 on October 16, 2002, dealing with 

budget process matters; it extended certain expiring budget enVerDate jan 13 2004 11:54 May 09, 2007 Jkt 028749 PO 00000 Frm 00081 Fmt 5935 Sfmt 5935 C:\DOCS\BUDGET\28749.TXT CRS1 PsN: SKAYNE
68 

forcement provisions and the Senate paygo rule, but did not set 

new budget levels. 

For FY2005, the House adopted on May 19, 2004, both the 

conference report on the FY2005 budget resolution and a special 

rule (H.R. 649) including a deeming resolution provision that put 

budget policies in the conference report into effect for the House. 

On August 5, 2004, H.R. 4613, the Defense Appropriations Act 

for FY2005, was signed into law and included Section 14007 that 

deemed portions of the 2005 budget resolution conference report 

to be in effect for the Senate. 

Courtesy of the U.S. Senate Photography Studio. 

Chairman Don Nickles and House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle 

share a laugh during the FY2005 budget resolution conference on March 31, 

2004. 

For FY2007, the House adopted a deeming provision in H. Res. 

818, a special rule providing for the consideration of the Interior 

Appropriations Act for FY2007. The Senate followed suit in June, 

adding a deeming resolution provision as Section 7035 in the conference report on H.R. 4939, an emergency supplemental appropriations act that was signed into law on June 15, 2006, as P.L. 

109–234. 

During the second session of the 109th Congress, in 2006, 

Chairman Judd Gregg, along with 26 cosponsors, introduced S. 

3521, the Stop Over Spending (SOS) Act of 2006. Title I of the 

SOS Act was the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006. Title 

I would have granted the President new authority to identify line 


28749.035
69 

items in discretionary and direct spending legislation, and targeted 

tax benefits in revenue legislation, and propose to Congress that 

they be rescinded or cancelled. Congress would have been compelled to consider the President’s proposals under expedited procedures without amendments. 

In an effort to balance the budget by FY2012, the bill would 

have established a mechanism under which the deficit would be 

limited to a declining percentage of the gross domestic product 

(beginning with 2.75 percent of GDP for FY2007 and dropping 

steadily to 0.5 percent of GDP for FY2012 and thereafter). The 

deficit targets would have been enforced by an automatic reconciliation process; if reconciliation legislation was not enacted or did 

not reduce the deficit by a sufficient amount, a sequestration involving automatic, largely across-the-board spending cuts would 

occur. 

Courtesy of the U.S. Senate Photography Studio.

Chairman Judd Gregg during a Budget Committee markup in 

June 2006. 


28749.015
70 

Other elements of the SOS Act of 2006 included: (1) statutory 

caps on discretionary budget authority for FY2007–FY2009, also 

enforced by sequestration, and limits on the amount of spending 

that may be designated as an emergency each year; (2) a new point 

of order against direct spending triggered when the Medicare Program was projected to become insolvent in 7 years or less; (3) biennial budgeting; (4) a bipartisan Commission on Congressional 

Budgetary Accountability and Review of Federal Agencies, to review government programs in a manner similar to the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission, and a bipartisan National Commission on Entitlement Solvency, to examine and make 

recommendations regarding the growth of entitlement spending; 

and (5) various changes pertaining to the consideration of budget 

resolutions and reconciliation measures. 

The SOS Act of 2006 was marked up by the Budget Committee 

on June 20, 2006. Eight amendments, including a substitute offered by Ranking Member Kent Conrad, were rejected. The 

Conrad substitute, among other things, would have restored statutory pay-as-you-go procedures applicable to revenue legislation as 

well as direct spending legislation and allowed the reconciliation 

process to be used only for deficit reduction. The Conrad alternative also would have required the President to budget for the 

cost of military operations, added new protections for Social Security, required conference reports to lay over for 48 hours and be 

scored prior to Senate consideration, and called on the President 

and Congress to undertake a bipartisan effort to solve the current 

and long-term fiscal challenges facing the Nation. An amendment 

making various modifications to the bill, offered by Chairman 

Gregg, was adopted. The Committee ordered the bill reported, as 

amended, by a vote of 12 to 10 (S. Rept. 109–283; July 14, 

2006). 

71 

1Complete interview transcripts are available at the Senate Historical Office, 201 Hart Senate 

Office Building, Washington, DC 20510, (202) 224-6900, and at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 101 Independence Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20540, (202) 707-5387. 

Staff Recollections 

The following recollections were excerpted from interviews conducted with former Senate Budget Committee staff during August 

and September 2006. The complete interview transcripts are available at the Senate Historical Office and the Library of Congress.1

Senior Committee staff members Jim Hearn, Cheri Reidy, and 

John Righter conducted the interviews. The Committee would like 

to thank the participants for their time and dedication to the 

project and for sharing their unique knowledge and insight to create an invaluable resource on the Senate Budget Committee and 

the Federal budget process. A list of interviewees along with their 

Committee affiliation follows. 

72 

2 In the 107th Congress, party control of the Senate changed several times (as discussed more 

fully in footnote 2 on page 109). 

STEPHEN E. BELL

Task Force Investigator (TFI), Senator Pete V. Domenici, 1979–1980 

Majority Staff Director, 1981–1986 

JACK CONWAY

Senior Analyst for Budget Review, 1979–1983 

WILLIAM G. DAUSTER

Majority Chief Counsel, 1987–1994 

Minority Staff Director and Minority Chief Counsel, 1995–1997 

JOHN L. HILLEY

Assistant Staff Director for Economics, Trade, and Finance, 1985–1989 

Majority Staff Director, 1989–1990 

G. WILLIAM HOAGLAND

Senior Analyst, 1982–1983 

Majority Deputy Staff Director, 1984–1985 

Majority Staff Director, 1986, 1995–2000 

Minority Staff Director, 1987–1994, 2001–2002 2

HAZEN MARSHALL

TFI, Legislative Assistant, Senator Don Nickles, 1988–1996 

TFI, Economist, Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles, 1997–1999 

TFI, Deputy Chief of Staff, 

Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles, 2000–2002 2

Majority Staff Director, 2003–2004 

JOHN T. MCEVOY

Majority Chief Counsel, 1974–1976 

Majority Staff Director, 1977–1980 

CAROLE MCGUIRE

Staff Assistant, Analyst, 1976–1985 

Director of Appropriations, 1986–1994 

Majority Deputy Staff Director and Director of Appropriations, 1995–2000 

Minority Deputy Staff Director and Director of Appropriations, 2001–2002 2

LARRY STEIN

Communications Director, 1988–1990 

Majority Staff Director, 1991–1994 

73 

Beginnings 

People and Structure 

Mr. McEvoy: I’ve got to credit Doug Bennett [the Committee’s 

first staff director] with the genius in creating staff. He knew what 

he was looking for. . . . These were people who ‘‘got’’ the process. That was the common denominator, with one or two exceptions who didn’t last. 

They somehow intuitively could fit into the Senate apparatus 

with a little coaching and didn’t fight the system. We insisted, 

this was Doug’s cardinal principle, mine as well, that we were 

going to be value-neutral on the budget. Our commitment was to 

the system. We were certainly Democrats, and the chairman was 

a Democrat, and that meant that you couldn’t do much without 

the Democrats. The staff wasn’t going to have an agenda. We 

thought policy was for the Senators to decide. We culled more 

than one staff person out of the Committee because we felt they 

had an agenda that they were pushing. 

Mr. Conway: In those early days, there were three or four analysts who worked for a group leader. Each of these groups were 

called pods, and the leader of the group was the pod leader. I 

think the name ‘‘pod’’ came from the ‘‘Invasion of the Body 

Snatchers’’ movie. There was a national security pod, which was 

defense and international affairs, and a human resources pod, 

which was health, education, income, security, and veterans’ affairs. 

There was also a natural resources pod, and a commerce and housing credit, and general government pod. Some of the group leaders 

did a function as well, and also oversaw the work of the other 

staffers. The major organizational elements would have been these 

pods covering the functional areas of the budget, and then a legal 

group and an administrative group. 

Ms. McGuire: From the early days of the Committee there has 

been continuity. . . . When it was set up by the Democrats in 

the mid-1970s, they had no blueprint on how to do this. They 

had to make some very basic decisions. Do we have subcommittees 

or do we not? How do we get people to serve on the Committee? 

The Committee structure today is very much like it was when it 

was set up. You have your functional analysts, policy groups, your 

staff director, deputy staff director, chief counsel, and budget review people. 

Task force investigators (TFIs), who are still around, came about 

in lieu of subcommittees. . . . They wanted to get them [members] involved in the budget and the budget process. So they set 

74 

up policy task forces to work on budget issues. The members’ staff 

were the TFIs. At one time, we tried to call them Senator’s representatives, but they have always been TFIs. 

Carroll Arms 

Mr. McEvoy: The Carroll Arms was the occasion for an awful 

lot of staff lore. It started because all the Senate space was used 

up. There was no Hart Building. Every Committee had every inch, 

and every Senator had every inch. Somebody did propose giving 

us a room in the basement, and Chairman Muskie said no. We 

were without a home, so I was operating out of a dungeon I called 

the ‘‘Muskie bunker,’’ this really dark place that was his private 

lair over in the Senate before Senator Sam Ervin retired, and Senator Muskie got his office. 

Doug [Bennett, the Committee’s first staff director] and I would 

walk around the Hill in the afternoon looking at buildings. Well, 

the Carroll Arms Hotel had also been [acquired by the Senate] 

across the street, a big hotel, it was going to be torn down for 

a parking lot, but when was the question, because the parking lot 

itself had gotten caught in the 1973 recession. Anyway, the Carroll Arms had been spared, but nobody knew for how long. So 

Doug and I made the case to Senator Muskie that we should try 

to get space in the Carroll Arms. I said to him, ‘‘But even that 

won’t work for the long term because one day it’s going to be torn 

down.’’ And he said, in his usual fashion, ‘‘Don’t worry. It’ll be 

there longer than you are.’’ He was right. 

We got two floors of the Carroll Arms, the second and third 

floor—well, most of the first, too, but there wasn’t much down 

there. Doug’s office, and later mine, was in the space that the 

Quorum Club used to be in. It was wonderful. We all had bathrooms. 

Ms. McGuire: The Budget Committee was assigned a hearing 

room in the Russell Building. We were physically located in the 

old Carroll Arms Hotel across the street which is now a parking 

lot. Because of staff limitations, and the fact that the Hart Building was not yet constructed, we were placed, much as CBO was, 

in an old building, which was a blessing and a curse: out of sight, 

out of mind. Any trip to see the Chairman, or to see one of the 

Members, or to go to a hearing, you had to walk across the street 

and into the Dirksen or Russell Buildings. Your chairman did not 

just drop by. One night about midnight when I was on the second 

floor of the Carroll Arms Annex, Chairman Muskie walked 

through, which just about freaked me out. I think that it was 

about the only time that the Chairman was ever in the building. 

75 

We had these old hotel rooms that everyone loved because they 

had a shower, so anyone that jogged could jog and come back and 

take a shower. It was kind of a quirky place to have your office, 

but we all loved the Carroll Arms Annex dearly until it was torn 

down. We had a big farewell party over there, and we moved 

across the street to the Dirksen Building. 

Sid Brown (the Committee’s First Chief of Budget Review) 

Mr. Hoagland: The first day I walked into the Budget Committee . . . I’ll never forget walking into Sid’s office, and he had 

one of those calculators that had a roll of paper on it. That’s the 

way the budget was put together. Sid was from the old Budget 

Office, the Bureau of the Budget, an old-time budgeteer, a great 

guy. Sid was that person who had integrity, nobody could challenge, and he could stand up to anyone in the early years and say, 

‘‘Now, this is the way it is,’’ and nobody was going to challenge 

Sid on it. There was this stature that Sid had. It’s hard to find, 

in this very political town today, a career staff person on Capitol 

Hill that can maintain that kind of respect. 

Mr. McEvoy: We had THE computer in the Senate. That was 

part of our mystique, see. We had a computer. These numbers 

that we used in our scorekeeping system came out of a computer! 

In fact, it was Sid massaging them. Sid had this assistant who reminded me of the far out scientist in the ‘‘Back to the Future’’ 

movie. He’d sit there at this little tabletop computer, one of the 

first desktops, and he’d say, ‘‘Let’s fire up Ol’ Nelly.’’ But you 

could never be sure that the damn thing was even going to go 

on, and you know, sparks would fly. . . . 

Everybody respected Sid. They knew he didn’t bend with the 

wind. And Chairman Muskie would never ask him to make a compromise. The numbers were the numbers. And Sid, because of his 

acumen, and his thorough understanding of the budget, commanded great respect at OMB [the Office of Management and 

Budget] among the professionals and at CBO [the Congressional 

Budget Office]. 

Technology 

Mr. Conway: Everything was done in millions with an asterisk 

for $500,000 or less, rather than, as we do today, billions and 

tenths of billions, with an asterisk for $50 million or less. In the 

beginning, there were no personal computers; everything was done 

on adding machines or calculators, and all the markup materials 

were done on paper that was put into a typewriter, and then you 

typed out all the numbers. The first time you put the piece of 

76 

paper in, it looked pretty good, but then you made a mistake on 

the number or CBO changed the number between Tuesday and 

Wednesday and the original would have to be ‘‘fixed.’’ So you’d 

take the piece of paper, and then maybe use some Wite-Out, or 

if you were really good, you could fit the page back in and maybe 

use a correct-a-type typewriter or had the tape that could cover 

over the mistake. That would work maybe the first two times, and 

then there was Wite-Out slathered on it, and by the end, when 

we finally were in the position of putting together a markup book, 

there were many layers of tape. So you’d have the tape, plus the 

Wite-Out, plus everything else. Some of the pages were so thick, 

you didn’t dare feed them through a copying machine. We did 

have copying machines. . . . 

f 

One thing that is no longer done is that every Saturday there 

was published and on the desk of every Senator on Monday morning, a Senate Budget Committee scorekeeping report. There would 

be a page for every committee and a page for every subcommittee 

of appropriations, and it would show the budget resolution, prior 

year spending, supplementals, current session spending, and the 

regular bills. So for an appropriation bill, it would start with the 

prior year outlays, then you would have, if there was a supplemental, any effect from the supplemental, and then if there was 

any action on the bill. If there was no action, it would just stop 

at that level. If it continued, you’d have comparisons to the budget resolution. Thank God I didn’t have to come in to work on 

that, but Sid [Brown] did. This stuff was set in monotype. It was 

not done electronically. Every piece was set in hot lead. Sid would 

come in and send it to GPO on Friday, and he’d come in every 

Saturday to look at the galleys. 

Markups, Resolutions, and the Senate Floor 

Mr. McEvoy: Chairman Muskie was prodigious in his absorption of data. We used to prepare thick undigested briefing books 

and send them home with him, so that he came into the markup 

knowing more than most of the members of the Committee knew 

about how things added up. He was a brilliant man. He could 

make combinations in his mind that others could not. He wanted 

to achieve consensus on a budget resolution, which meant he 

couldn’t have everything he wanted, but he also knew what was 

the minimum he, in conscience and politically, could settle for. 

The staff never presented a mark, and we never had a Committee mark. The House did that all the time. The leadership had 

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resentation on the Committee, and they followed it very closely. 

We never did that. Muskie was zero based in budget resolutions. 

The only number we offered in the Committee in its documents 

was the current services budget. People would propose a number, 

plus or minus that starting point. Current services was what it 

would cost to run the government taking into account all the legislation on the books, adjusted for the current economic forecast. 

You could put it into the functional baskets and see it. And so 

that’s kind of how it got started. I considered the President’s 

budget dead on arrival. 

f 

One time we had a second resolution markup, or maybe it was 

a first resolution, going on for 3 or 4 weeks, and members stopped 

coming. We would meet all day. It would be between floor votes. 

We got down to about eight people in the Committee, and Chairman Muskie wouldn’t stop because one of his negotiating techniques was that he just kept you going until you were ready to 

sign up. He would not let a final vote come on a resolution that 

he didn’t think he was going to pick up Republicans on. So he 

had enormous patience. 

If you got a consensus on every number, everybody in the Committee was smart enough and they had their own staffs to know 

what we were building up to, so if you had a consensus through 

to the end on all of the functions, chances are you were going to 

get to the end in a way that had consensus on the outcome. 

Ms. McGuire: We prepared similar markup books to the type 

that you do now, although they were more extensive. The theory 

was that the members needed to have an education about what 

was in the Federal budget. So they were rather extensive markups 

to describe what a function was and what programs were in it, 

and what the funding patterns had been as well as the current 

services baseline, CBO’s current policy baseline, and the President’s budget request. Markups took 2, sometimes 3, weeks because we would walk through every function, and every functional 

analyst would give a presentation on what was in the function, and 

then entertain questions. In those days, we did not always have 

a Chairman’s Mark. It was more putting together a budget resolution the old-fashioned way by offering amendments to the budget 

functions. We walked through every budget function, and members could offer amendments to the function, and the Committee 

would act on them. 

Over time as things got more partisan, and there was less camaraderie on the Committee, we changed to the current system of 

markups where everybody has their own ideas of what they want 

78 

in the resolution, and the better part of valor is to cut to the chase 

and do the Chairman’s Mark. When people kind of recognized the 

writing on the wall and by the time that you were having one 

or two vote margins, you realized that you had to get all of your 

guys in line. The chairmen started to figure out that they had to 

put together a mark and get as much support as they could and 

then open it up for the amendment process. This did two things, 

it expedited the process and somewhat guaranteed you could get 

a budget resolution out of the Committee. I think the chairmen 

felt it was their responsibility to get a budget resolution to the 

floor. Somehow they had to get that done. That was the one thing 

that they were asked to do every year. 

f 

Out of those rather lengthy markups and back and forth negotiating sessions, I think, is where our ‘‘no proxy’’ rule came 

from. . . . Since the Budget Committee met for a very short period of time each year, certain chairmen thought that the members 

ought to be present and accounted for for the duration of the 

markup and that members using proxies slowed down the work 

of the Committee. Chairman Chiles was the one that really pushed 

extensively for the ‘‘no proxy’’ rule based on his experience over 

time with Chairman Muskie and as the ranking member trying 

to get the budget resolutions adopted in the Committee. I think 

that those lengthy markups and the fact that you had to herd 

members into the Committee to offer their amendments, eventually led to the adoption of the ‘‘no proxy’’ rule. 

Mr. Conway: In those days, the analysts would sit at the table 

during markup and answer questions, and heaven help the analyst 

who stumbled in front of the members. You’ve all seen it, if members get a sense that you don’t know what you’re talking 

about. . . . I was always terrified of what questions they were 

going to ask because I was the functional analyst for function 900, 

interest, 920, allowances, and 950, undistributed offsetting receipts, which included Outer Continental Shelf rents and royalties. 

The Members who had written the laws on Outer Continental 

Shelf rents and royalties were sitting at the table

f 

. . . . 

At that time, we did at least two budget resolutions a year. The 

first budget resolution was advisory, and the second budget resolution was binding. The binding part of the resolution was what we 

called ‘‘the last piggy at the trough,’’ the last appropriation bill 

or the first appropriation bill that would cause the 302(a) allocation to be breached and would be subject to a majority point of 

79 

3Budget Process Law Annotated 1993 Edition: Including the Congressional Budget Act, GrammRudman-Hollings, the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, Executive Order 12857, and Related 

Budget-Process Legislation. Committee on the Budget, United States Senate. Annotations by William G. Dauster, Chief Counsel. Senate Print 103–49, 103rd Congress, First Session. October 1993. 

Government Printing Office. 

order. There were no points of order on each of the individual appropriation bills. It was only on the last one or the one that would 

cause a breach of the budget. 

You would finish the first budget resolution. There would be 

a short period and then you would begin the second budget resolution. The second budget resolution basically was to incorporate 

CBO re-estimates from the time the first budget resolution was 

adopted. There were a number of different updates. There was the 

President’s budget, then there was an April update where OMB 

would submit updated information similar to the midsession review, then they would do the midsession review in July. 

As a staffer, the most difficult thing was, ‘‘what set of numbers 

are we working on now?’’ Depending on what stage of the process 

you were in, if you were scoring a bill, you would be doing it 

under the assumptions of the first budget resolution. If you were 

preparing things for the second budget resolution markup, you 

would be scoring the same bills, but under the assumptions of the 

second budget resolution, and they may be the assumptions that 

were from the OMB April update, or they may be further modified by the July midsession review. 

Ms. McGuire: The second budget resolution was really more for 

fine tuning, but the farther we went in the process, and the longer 

it continued to take to get our appropriations work and tax work 

completed, it seemed to be almost irrelevant at the time we were 

supposed to do the second budget resolution. There were not a lot 

of things to fine tune. We were still in the middle of doing appropriation bills and tax bills and things of that nature. At some 

point, it became a housekeeping function and essentially irrelevant 

as we revised the budget resolution in the next cycle. We continued to update the past budget resolution when we did a new resolution and that practice essentially took the place of the second 

budget resolution. 

Mr. Hearn [interviewer, to Mr. Dauster]: The purpose of this 

whole exercise of the Committee history is to put together a document that people can use, to research, to go back and draw on 

what might otherwise be lost to history. One product that already 

exists is what the small circle of potential scholars is going to call 

‘‘the blue book,’’ 3 which is what we call it, which you know a 

80 

lot about since you wrote it. It really was, for the period that it 

covered in terms of the law at the time, it was ‘‘the bible.’’ 

Mr. Dauster [in response to Mr. Hearn]: There have been three 

editions of the volume we’re talking about. What started off as 

the ‘‘Congressional Budget Act Annotated’’ or ‘‘Budget Process 

Annotated’’ . . . started for two reasons. First, to have collected 

in one place all the things I’d need on the floor, and I’d want to 

argue with the Parliamentarian about what was the law on something. So, it was useful to have it and not have it in a large suitcase. It’s better to have something small that you can carry with 

you at all times. Second, it helped me to understand the law better, and so it was a good, useful learning process for me. 

Tests of Budget Enforcement 

Mr. McEvoy: In July 1975, Chairman Muskie was confronted 

with his first challenge to that budget resolution because Senator 

McGovern, who was chairman of the Special Subcommittee on 

Hunger, had fought and lost to Senator Dole in Committee on an 

amendment to raise school lunch subsidies, I think by a nickel or 

something. The House had passed a bill that vastly exceeded what 

the Senate had allowed for it in our budget resolution. Senator 

Dole was standing by the budget resolution in opposing the 

McGovern amendment. Senator McGovern came to the floor and 

offered an amendment to put it back. 

Now, Chairman Muskie’s politics would have driven him in the 

past to vote for that [the McGovern amendment], and he took a 

lot of heat at home for failing to, but he and Ranking Member 

Bellmon thought their deal stood up and announced that they 

were opposing that amendment. We beat it something like 73 to 

27, picking up a great number of Democrats whom Senator 

McGovern expected to vote with him. Then he [Senator McGovern] went to conference and accepted the much higher House 

number, so the conference report that came back to the Senate was 

at least as expensive as the one we had averted when we beat the 

McGovern amendment. So we’re going to have to fight him again, 

and we knew we were going to win that. 

As it happened—and this was blind luck and stupidity, I’ve 

apologized to the two guys who were staff director and counsel to 

the Armed Services Committee over and over again since then— 

the defense authorization bill had come out of conference over the 

levels presumed in the budget resolution and though it passed the 

Senate, it was pretty much what we putatively had attributed to 

it. We didn’t enforce the budget resolution against authorization 

bills dependent upon subsequent appropriation, except that I was 

81 

so, shall we say, naive or new to the process that it just seemed 

to me that the chance of nailing Senator McGovern and the 

Armed Services Committee together was overwhelming. So I suggested that we take on both conference reports as a package and 

make the liberals that were going to vote against the defense bill, 

choose between being against defense and for liberal priorities or 

for the budget on both. We were going to make the defense conservatives do the same thing. 

Well, the only justification for my position arguing that this 

authorization bill spent money was that Senator John Stennis . . . 

was not only chairman of the Armed Services Committee, but also 

chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, so he 

could make sure the appropriation equaled the authorization level. 

Chairman Muskie sent a letter out the week before the two conference bills were coming to the floor saying they both broke the 

budget, and we’re going to vote against them and urged everybody 

to do it. We beat both of them. The first one up was the defense 

bill. We won 48 to 41, but it was so hotly contested that Senator 

Tower, ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, 

called for a vote on Majority Leader Mansfield’s motion to lay the 

motion to reconsider on the table. There was only one switch. 

That vote is what made the budget process in the Senate, because 

if you could beat Senator John Stennis, and if you could make the 

liberals face up to the fact that if they wanted to hold defense 

down, they had to hold their own stuff down, and that Chairman 

Muskie and Ranking Member Bellmon were a formidable force, 

and they’d kick you across the room on the Senate floor if you 

came to the floor with what we called a budget buster. 

It was a package, that was the genius of it. You couldn’t be 

for one and not the other and claim any fiscal responsibility. Senator Stennis went back dutifully and cut his bill in conference 

again, and Senator McGovern hated it, but he finally came into 

line, and we passed both conference reports later consistent with 

the budget. I told somebody when Senator McGovern first brought 

the bill to the floor, the first time we had to beat it before it went 

to conference, this was the great challenge for Chairman Muskie, 

and it was the most painful challenge coming from his own side 

and on one of his priorities. 

Ms. McGuire: One of the biggest victories in the early days for 

Chairman Muskie was that he took on the aviation bill for excessive spending. Everyone thought that he was nuts to go down to 

the floor and make the budget arguments. He decided that he 

needed to go down and say, ‘‘This is outside the budget resolution, and we need to re-think this bill.’’ He actually won on one 

82 

of the points of order, which was a huge boost of morale to the 

Budget Committee because it was hard to get these other committees to change their ways. 

Committee Dynamics 

Mr. McEvoy: What people didn’t recognize was that Ranking 

Member Bellmon had been the first Republican Governor in Oklahoma since statehood, and he had to deal with a Democratic legislature and had to learn how to do it. Chairman Muskie had been 

the first Democratic Governor in Maine in 100 years, and he had 

to deal with an entirely Republican legislature. So these two guys 

came together with a background that said if anything was going 

to be achieved, it had to be achieved with some compromise and 

on a bipartisan basis. . . . Chairman Muskie made a deal with Ranking Member Bellmon 

that the process wasn’t going to work if it fell into partisanship, 

and that the only way to make it work was for Senator Bellmon 

and he to agree that the process would be paramount in their 

work in the Committee and that they would each sacrifice, to the 

extent it was possible and necessary, their own priorities and 

views, in order to build the consensus for a resolution that could 

not just pass the Committee, but survive in the Senate. That was 

the deal that basically made the budget process in the Senate for 

6 years. 

f 

Chairman Muskie had incredible patience, I mean such patience 

that it drove me nuts in formulating budget resolutions. They 

would take weeks. He would drive the rest of the Committee nuts 

because he almost always had all the Democratic votes he needed. 

But he was waiting to pick up the Republican side. He was waiting until everybody had run out of breath and energy and was 

willing to say, look, we’ve got to get a budget resolution done. 

Because when he went to the floor, he wanted to get 65, 75, 85 

votes for it. I don’t think we ever got, while I was here, fewer 

than that on a budget resolution. Most times over 70. So he had 

a commitment going into the Senate based on the commitment 

coming out of his Committee. 

Mr. Conway: From the very beginning, Senators Muskie and 

Bellmon worked together in a bipartisan way to produce a bipartisan budget resolution. In those early years, the budget resolution 

was a bipartisan document. It was always a bipartisan amendment 

that would roll them on defense. Inevitably it was the Fritz Hollings-Pete Domenici defense amendment. Bob Sneed as the defense 

83 

analyst would prepare Chairman Muskie’s mark, and he would also 

prepare the Hollings-Domenici amendment. Sneed would get in 

the position where he would have to write talking points for the 

Chairman’s Mark, and he’d then write the talking points for the 

Hollings-Domenici mark. Senator Muskie would present the mark. 

Then Senators Domenici and Hollings would do their counterproposal. So here was Sneed, who had prepared talking points for 

each of the amendments and against the other person’s amendment. John McEvoy, the staff director, would say something like, 

‘‘Bob, I told you to give him help, but not that much help.’’ Inevitably, the Hollings-Domenici defense mark would beat the 

Muskie-Bellmon defense mark. 

Mr. Hoagland: Senator Domenici and Senator Chiles were personal friends. They hunted together; they fished together; they did 

other things together; and their wives socialized together. That 

kind of relationship outside of this institution, outside of these 

four walls, I think makes it easier. It’s not that Senator Chiles and 

Senator Domenici didn’t have differences of opinion, but they 

worked together. 

f 

It’s my recollection that, first of all, it was a Committee in 

which in the early years, it wasn’t clear that people wanted to be 

on it. . . . So it got down to the end, I won’t say the leftover 

Committee, but you ended up with a lot of freshmen Senators. 

As budgeting and fiscal policy became more of an issue and 

more attention was brought to it particularly during the Reagan 

and Stockman [Director of the OMB] years, there was a sense that 

this might be an exciting Committee to get on. I’ll never forget 

Bill Dauster introducing me to Senator Clinton when she first 

came to the Senate and became a member of this Committee. She 

said to me, ‘‘Bill, my husband, has told me that this is the Committee to get on, because if you want to learn the Federal budget 

quickly, this is the Committee.’’ 

So there was a movement, a little bit more attention being paid 

to it, particularly during the latter part of the 1980s and 1990s, 

that it was an exciting Committee, it was a Committee that had 

attention brought to it. 

Interaction with the Senate Leadership and the Executive 

Branch 

Mr. McEvoy: President Carter asked Chairman Muskie, the congressional leadership, and the Budget Committee leadership to 

come down to the White House for a big breakfast. All of the 

84 

heavy hitters from all of the committees were there. I suspect what 

they wanted to do was a combination of make peace and assert 

their supremacy as the President, as the executive branch. President Carter laid out the olive branch, and he talked about how 

important it was to do things together and so on. He asked if anybody had anything to say, and Senator Muskie got up and gave 

the President a civics lesson. He said he respected what the President said, but he had to understand that there were two distinct 

branches here. There was the administration, and there was the 

Congress, and Congress had the power of the purse and took it 

seriously. He gave him a ‘‘little Dutch uncle’’ in a polite way. 

That ended the discussion. We never had another one of those, 

and to my knowledge, Senator Muskie never dealt directly with 

President Carter again on the budget. 

f 

When I said the President’s budget was dead on arrival up here, 

we never took it seriously—first, because we didn’t think they 

could enforce it; and second, we knew our deal with the Republicans in this Committee was not going to be enhanced by starting 

with anything that looked like a Presidential budget. 

Ms. McGuire: Another notable moment that I will never forget 

was while we were marking up a budget resolution in the early 

1980s, and Senator Domenici was not enamored with President 

Reagan’s tax cut. As we were in the middle of the markup, he 

got the tap on the shoulder to come out to the phone booth, and 

the President was on the other end of the line saying ‘‘Pete, I really need your vote on this, I really need my tax cut.’’ They must 

have talked for 10 or 15 minutes. The Senator came back, and he 

was very serious looking, and he said that the clerk will call the 

roll, and he voted against the President. That was one of the more 

high drama moments that we had. 

Mr. Dauster: Yes, it [the relationship between the Committee 

and leadership] has changed over time. When I started [in 1987], 

I was working for Senator Lawton Chiles. It’s not often remembered, but he challenged Senator Byrd for majority leader, and 

therefore, the relations were not entirely warm at the beginning, 

and we strove to have a distinct and separate role from the leader. 

As I mentioned, Chairman Sasser and Leader Mitchell were 

close, and therefore, it was a different relationship. And that was 

useful for both parties to be able to work together, because the 

budget relied so much on getting the caucus to get passed and 

because the leader could get so much of the agenda done through 

the budget. 

85 

Mr. Hoagland: Markups were not only by function but also by 

subfunctions, and they would go on for weeks and way into the 

night, and members really got into the details. But when it got 

down to it, what they found out, which is what we all knew at 

the time, was at the end of the day it’s just a number, and you 

can say whatever policy assumption you like, but it’s still a number. So the accounting nature of the process in those early years 

shifted when Stockman [Director of the OMB] started pushing the 

reconciliation process as a way not only to achieve the numbers, 

but to achieve the policy. 

So those early years, and I realize they’re contentious about how 

that has evolved over time in terms of reconciliation, but the early 

years, 1981, 1982, 1983, the stories that are told about President 

Reagan calling in here as a vote was about to take place on his 

. . . [budget plan], and Domenici saying, no, we’re voting the 

way we’re voting and standing up to the President, you don’t see 

that anymore. You don’t see the chairmen, and I say that generically, you don’t see the leadership saying this is an independent 

or this is a separate branch of government. In those early days, 

there was conflict. Even though Republicans controlled the Senate 

and the White House, there was an effort here to convey we actually did have something to say about fiscal policy. 

Mr. Marshall: I spent a few years working for the leadership. 

When you’re in leadership, you spend most of your time cursing 

the committees because they’re not doing what you want, and I 

quickly found out, switching places, that the committees sit 

around and curse the leadership for trying to tell them what to 

do. There’s always tension between leadership and the committees. 

I think it was less so when Senator Nickles was chairman just because he had such a great relationship with Leader Frist and because of his service in the leadership, he very much understood 

what they wanted and needed and vice versa. 

f 

The Committee over the last several years, at least in the tenure 

of this Bush administration, has been closer to the administration 

and their priorities than I’ve seen in the past. I think that was 

a reflection of Congress generally. The Republican Caucus in the 

House and the Senate over the last several years has been more 

deferential and more accepting of the administration’s priorities 

than before. I’m a legislative branch snob, so that has always just 

bugged me a little bit. It wasn’t just the Committee. It was a reflection of Congress as a whole. That didn’t used to be the case; 

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86 

ber) bucking Presidents in the past, and I think it happened on 

the other side as well. 

Reconciliation 

Mr. McEvoy: I walked into his [Chairman Muskie’s] office, 

which was always kind of dark, and he’s sitting at his big desk. 

He had never seen a second resolution report from CBO that made 

him happy, because it always had economic re-estimates, and he 

took a beating in Maine for it. Even if it was only a couple billion 

dollars, people would say he was betraying the process. The big 

high and mighty guy said they have to have integrity and then 

blows the budget by $2 billion. 

He didn’t say a word. I said, ‘‘Senator, it’s bad news.’’ He 

looked at me like, ‘‘What else?’’ I handed him the piece of paper, 

and I said that CBO says. . . . He looked at that paper, and he 

said, ‘‘What am I supposed to do about this?’’ I said, ‘‘Well, we 

could do a reconciliation bill.’’ He said, ‘‘You know that won’t 

work.’’ I said, ‘‘Well, no, probably it won’t, but at least you can 

bring a reconciliation bill to the floor. All these committees are 

going to have to come down and explain why you shouldn’t do 

it and justify what they’ve done.’’ Well, he loved that. 

Chairman Muskie came up to the Committee during a markup, 

the second resolution, and he quietly suggested we do a reconciliation bill. Congress was about to leave town. Nobody had the 

slightest idea of what a reconciliation bill might be. I mean, it 

was a line in the budget process. It had not been discussed in 4 

years. The Republicans loved it because, you know, why not? The 

Democrats were skeptical, but they were all worn out. It was one 

of those marathon markups, and they were going to be embarrassed by these numbers, too. We didn’t have all the Democrats 

on board, but we had enough. Congress adjourns, and nobody 

knows we’ve done it. The press wasn’t covering it. The Senate 

wasn’t paying any attention. 

Chris Matthews was at that time the press relations guy for the 

Committee. A very frustrated fellow because Chairman Muskie 

didn’t like publicity. To get press, you had to make waves; making waves was not his style up here. So I was always having to 

sit on Chris to keep him from doing a press release or coming up 

with an angle that would make a story. He and I sat down, as 

most of the congressional staff was already on vacation, and we decided that we should make something of this. 

Chris went to work on the press, which had nothing else to report during August [1979] about Congress. Bob Schieffer even did 

a piece on it from the Capitol lawn in late August, and papers 

all over the country started picking up on it in the editorial pages. 

87 

Members were getting sandbagged. They didn’t even know it happened, and here the papers are calling for them to do it. 

So there was a real wildfire going in the Senate among Democratic Senators and chairmen about what this was all about, and 

Majority Leader Byrd held a meeting to decide what to do . . . 

He didn’t want this fight on his hands. He wanted the flames put 

out before this resolution. It was Senator Abe Ribicoff, chairman 

of Governmental Operations, who wasn’t a special friend of Muskie 

or vice versa, who said, according to this person who was there, 

‘‘You know, there’s something we have to recognize here. We 

don’t like what Ed has done, and maybe we could have had some 

more notice.’’ Of course, if they’d had notice, they’d have killed 

it. He said, ‘‘But there is a thing in politics called ‘secondary identity,’ in which people look at a politician, and they don’t see the 

politician, they see his secondary identification. And in Ed 

Muskie’s case, that is fiscal integrity. And I think we take on Ed 

on this one at our risk.’’ 

That ended it. It quelled the rebellion. We [the Senate] passed 

the resolution with some grousing, mandating $4.2 billion [$3.6 

billion in reconciliation savings]. . . . The House didn’t want to 

take it. They fought us bitterly and said they wouldn’t do it. In 

truth, the House wasn’t prepared for what we had done and 

couldn’t pass the Resolution [the conference report on the budget 

when] it contained reconciliation in that year. So we had to drop 

it in conference, but we warned we’d be back. The next year, we 

came back with something relatively the same size and passed it 

in both Houses. 

Mr. Conway: Probably one of the early successes, from the Senate point of view, was basically forcing the House to accept reconciliation in the calendar year 1980 second budget resolution. 

Senator Hollings was the chairman. That was the first time that 

a full-blown reconciliation instruction on spending to both House 

and Senate Committees was included in the conference report on 

a budget resolution. There had been an earlier instance [FY1976 

budget] of a reconciliation instruction that was before my time, 

but it was the one where there was a reconciliation instruction, 

and it was only to the Senate Finance Committee. 

There was a great deal of resistance from the authorizing committees to that first reconciliation instruction [on the spending 

side] in 1980, but it was nothing compared to the resentment on 

the part of some committees to the reconciliation instruction in 

1981 [in the FY1982 budget resolution]. 

88 

Mr. Bell: In 1980, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in 

November, Minority Leader Howard Baker called me at 3 o’clock 

in the morning asking did I know where Senator Domenici was, 

and I said, ‘‘Yes, sir,’’ and he said that I better call him up because he was chairman of the Budget Committee. I tracked him 

down and told him, and like any sane person he was asleep and 

said, ‘‘What?’’ I said that Howard Baker just called me up and 

said that you were chairman of the Budget Committee. ‘‘Now 

what are you going to do?’’ He said, ‘‘Hmm . . . gosh, I don’t 

know. I have to think about that.’’ 

[After the 1980 election], the two major questions were one, 

could Republicans govern, especially with . . . Ronald Reagan, 

now to the utter dismay of the Washington establishment in the 

White House, and two, this budget process, which . . . they really held down by putting it under the leadership of Senator Warren 

Magnuson, who was chairman of Appropriations, because the natural conflict which had to occur between the appropriations process and the budget process had been delayed in starting, so what 

was Domenici going to do with the budget process? 

The year before we had taken a very important baby step on 

reconciliation, and I think that the first interview we gave was 

that the budget process has crawled, and it has walked, now it is 

time to run. Our main challenge, therefore, was not only could 

we govern, but could we carry out the mandate that people felt 

Republicans had after the 1980 elections. So, internally, there were 

some serious challenges. 

People forget there was a reconciliation instruction in 1980, in 

the lame duck session, it passed. It was in the $8 billion range. 

That sounds tiny, but remember we were dealing with much 

smaller budgets back then. The fact that it was done, the fact that 

there was no serious parliamentary challenges to it . . . gave us 

the freedom. That was important, I can’t stress how important a 

step that was because it was not challenged. . . . 

You had the precedent. Reconciliation was in order; it was 

legal, signed into law by the President. It [expanding the reach 

of reconciliation] evolved from the underlying statute [the Congressional Budget Act]; it [the requirement to do reconciliation] 

did not emerge from the committees of jurisdiction. It emerged 

as an instruction from the Budget Committee. The fact that you 

[the Budget Committee] could do that meant that the only thing 

left to the Senate and House to decide was the extent of reconciliation. We had the foot in the door, and the next thing you know, 

the whole damn elephant was in there. So you should not underestimate the combination of that vote and our interpretation of 

what I call the elastic clause where it says, ‘‘any other such actions 

89 

to carry out the purpose of that Act’’, never put that in a bill, 

let me give you some advice. 

f 

David Stockman, Director of the OMB, wanted to do the 

Reagan program as an amendment fully debatable on the debt 

ceiling extension. He had been a House Member, and so he did 

not really understand Senate procedure that well, especially when 

it came to such things as reconciliation and what I called the 

‘‘elastic clause’’ in the 1974 Budget Act. It was the day before 

Christmas, in his office, I explained reconciliation to him and what 

I thought we could do. I pointed out that if we did what we 

wanted to do, it would be the most dramatic change in the way 

the Senate did business in about 150 years. 

It was essentially truncating Rule XXII and expanding the restrictions on filibuster and debate and that he could expect that 

while nobody in the White House would care one damn way or 

the other, it would be a highly controversial time on the Hill. 

This is the subject of all sorts of books that have been written. 

Senator Baker established that precedent on the floor with more 

than 50 votes in the first half of 1981 which he won every one 

by 53 to 47 which was the majority that Republicans held in the 

Senate. When people write his biography and such [they] may 

overlook that, it was one of the great leadership feats in the 35 

years I have been here—unprecedented and people just could not 

believe it. 

In February, we had a reconciliation bill introduced by Senators 

Hollings and Domenici. By midyear, we were able to pass a budget resolution with reconciliation, second resolution later in the 

year, and by the end of the year, we had been able to establish 

in the Senate, not only a brand new way of doing business in the 

Senate, as far as deficits and spending, but it turned out because 

of the expanded use of reconciliation over the years, we were able 

to do most of the important changes and most of the important 

things that are happening in the Senate. 

So we were in a situation in the 1980s where we were kind of 

the stepchild, where a bunch of guys had to impose in 1974 the 

Budget Act and the budget process on the Senate and the House, 

and where the Act was a peculiar amalgam of changes in the Senate rules and changes in statute law. . . . It was clear that unless 

we had the confrontation between the Budget Committee and the 

other committees, the budget process was not going to work the 

way that some of the original authors had intended. 

Mr. Conway: The first time that reconciliation was used full 

bore was in 1981, right after the Senate flipped. Senator Domenici 

90 

became the new chairman of the Budget Committee. . . . The 

Senate Republicans wanted to demonstrate that they were there to 

make the changes that were part of the Reagan victory. 

The Republicans were then in a position of saying, well, we’ve 

been calling President Carter weak on defense all this time, we 

have got to put an even bigger defense number in there. So they 

had 5 percent real growth in defense. To me, this was kind of a 

problem. It was like their politics got in the way, so they came 

up with a ridiculously large number for defense relative to what 

it had been. So they got a big change. They changed the slope 

on defense unbelievably, and part of that was driven purely by politics. They said, after the election, ‘‘We can’t say that we’re no 

stronger on defense than the 3 percent real growth of Jimmy 

Carter.’’ So that was the first step in going off the precipice of 

having far more spending than you could support with everything 

else. 

The goal was, OK, well, what’s a way that we can get a quick 

vote on spending priorities? So in 1981 they decided to do what 

became S. Con. Res. 9, and it was a revision. It was revising the 

second budget resolution for fiscal year 1980 . . . , and it was 

all reconciliation [instructions]. . . . So the Senate passed S. Con. Res. 9 and went back and did a 

complete full-blown budget resolution, incorporated the decisions 

that had been in the reconciliation instructions of the first one and 

then proceeded ahead. The goal there was to get a marker out 

there and get the Members on the record of supporting reductions 

in nondefense spending. 

Gramm-Rudman-Hollings (GRH) 

Mr. Stein: The fundamental contradiction in the Reagan agenda, and all Presidents have contradiction, this is not intended to 

be an attack on the Reagan administration, but the fundamental 

contradiction was that you could cut taxes and fund a military 

that was going to defeat the evil empire. I believe history will 

look back at it that way. Also, he did not live up to the domestic 

policy cuts that he hoped to achieve for a variety of reasons. When 

we took over, the budgetary consequences of that contradiction 

were self-evident. You had the big tax cuts. You had Senator 

Dole’s efforts to kind of ameliorate them in I guess it would be 

1983 that were somewhat effectual, but not effectual enough. 

Then you had the reaction to that, which really took the form of 

Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. 

Mr. Bell: In 1985, we kind of set in concrete the budget process and its ascendancy. We had something called Gramm-RudVerDate jan 13 2004 11:54 May 09, 2007 Jkt 028749 PO 00000 Frm 00104 Fmt 5935 Sfmt 5935 C:\DOCS\BUDGET\28749.TXT CRS1 PsN: SKAYNE
91 

man-Hollings. With no disrespect to those three Senators, it was 

a strange idea. It essentially said the House and Senate can’t do 

their business, or don’t do it the way we like, and therefore we’re 

going to penalize the House and Senate by some mechanistic 

measures if they don’t behave the way we want them to behave. 

I was dead set against this, and I would see Senator Gramm and 

say, ‘‘God Almighty!’’ 

Fortunately, Gramm-Rudman-Hollings was so contrary to the 

culture and the Constitution and whole flow of legislative history, 

the first thing we did was to ignore it. . . . I think any mechanistic approach in which you say if you don’t do A, B, C by a 

time certain, then deus ex machina . . . some god will come 

down from the heavens, resolve the problem, and do for you what 

you cannot or will not do for yourself. I think that is absolutely, 

utterly going to fail. I think it is just such, at least in our tradition for the last 200-plus years, it is such a radical departure from 

the notion of participatory democracy and judgments that Senators 

and Congressmen are supposed to make and the free marketplace 

of ideas. . . . 

f 

All I wanted to do was put in the 60-vote point of order, make 

the 302(b)s mandatory, say no appropriation bill can come to the 

floor of the Senate without 302(b)s being filed. I wanted to institutionalize and put into concrete the supremacy of the budget 

process. Because nobody else cared, they all thought that it wasn’t 

very sexy.... When it was done the chief clerk of the Appropriations Committee came to me and said, ‘‘Is it true that these are all new, 

these are 60 vote points of order?’’ And I said, ‘‘They are.’’ He 

asked, ‘‘Well, did you check with the Appropriations Committee 

staff?’’ I said, ‘‘Well, I don’t think I did.’’ He’s a personal friend 

of mine. We had a strained friendship for a while because of this. 

‘‘Well, what’s going to happen?’’ I said, ‘‘Well, it’s going to be 

signed into law, a new law, it’s going to be 60-vote points of 

order since this is a hybrid bill that changes both the rules of the 

Senate and statutory law at the same time’’ (except nobody but 

me, Sid Brown, and Senator Domenici probably realized that). 

‘‘That’s the way we’re going to do business from now on, and it’s 

going to be 60 votes for most everything.’’ That was the one positive outcome in my view of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings event, 

that we were able to change the rules of the Senate. 

Mr. Hoagland: Once we established our credentials that we 

really had a role in formulating fiscal policy, then I think the next 

major challenge from a policy perspective really, as I think back 

92 

on it, was when we passed that $2 trillion public debt figure, and 

now the process shifted from setting the blueprint, setting the 

goals, setting the direction, to one of actually forcing an outcome, 

and forcing an outcome through the mechanisms of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. The process changed, that was a pivotal point in 

the history of this Committee where you move from setting a goal 

to actually enforcing that goal. The result—process became an 

issue. 

Post-GRH Budget Agreements 

Mr. Dauster: The Gramm-Rudman era was one in which we 

had a deficit target that we all had to try and meet, but nobody 

in particular was responsible for the deficit. It was the function 

of exogenous economic variables as much as legislative action. So 

we felt that it was sometimes an irrational process. So to move 

away from Gramm-Rudman toward a system where particular actors would be responsible for their own actions was an important 

goal of that era. Some people criticized that as no-fault budgeting, 

but it’s responsibility-for-what-you-can-control budgeting. And 

that was an important and hard-fought change. 

1987 Agreements: Omnibus Reconciliation (OBRA) and Balanced 

Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Reaffirmation Act 

Mr. Dauster: Chairman Lawton Chiles wanted to enforce fiscal 

responsibility. He was a fiscally conservative Democrat and believed that it was important to the credibility of the newly majority Democratic Party that we would be fiscally responsible as well 

and, therefore, thought it was important to make the GrammRudman law work now that it had been ruled unconstitutional in 

the Synar v. Bowsher decision. So he set about trying to build that 

consensus, and Senator Domenici was a good participant in that, 

and Senator Gramm himself, too. 

f 

We did little changes to try and put our fingers in the dike 

and stop leaks of deficit-increasing actions. Along those lines, Rick 

Brandon [staff director] and Chairman Chiles had me write something to prevent sales of assets being counted as budget authority, 

because we didn’t want to sell the garage in order to pay the 

mortgage. We tried to prevent shifting money from one time period to another. These are sort of little patches on the fabric of 

the budget process. Every time somebody would find a little gimmick, we would try to make it out of order and fix that, which 

added to the complexity of the business, but occasionally stopped 

a leak for a while. 

93 

1989 Agreement: OBRA 

Mr. Hilley: President George H.W. Bush’s first year in office 

was 1989, and his budget director was Dick Darman. They came 

in and were interested in trying to reach a bipartisan solution to 

the budget, trying to reduce the deficit and trying to hit the 

Gramm-Rudman targets that were in effect during that time. So 

our year started on a bipartisan note of a negotiation to reduce the 

deficit, by a very piddly amount, to tell the truth. As you recall, 

President George H.W. Bush won the Presidency in 1988 largely 

on the ‘‘no new taxes’’ pledge, and so when they came in, the 

budget agreement they were seeking on a bipartisan basis did not 

include taxes as a major component. That sort of doomed the effort to really take a large bite out of it in that particular year. 

In any case, there was a very bipartisan and quick agreement about 

reducing the deficit. Nineteen-eighty-nine was a year of bipartisanship, of positive, but meager accomplishment in terms of dealing 

with the deficit reduction problem, but the year came to be dominated in the end by the fight over capital gains tax reduction. 

f 

The year 1989 was the high point for the virtue of reconciliation, because that virtue came out of a political standoff. . . . In 

that particular year, there was a plug or number for $5.3 billion 

of revenue increases. Now that fit extremely well with President 

George H.W. Bush’s desire for capital gains tax cuts because, they 

had a transparent and convoluted way to use the capital gains rate 

reduction to make the Treasury flush with revenue in the short 

term. Majority Leader Mitchell and the Democratic caucus were 

dead set against that though. . . . The Democratic leadership in 

both Houses strongly opposed the capital gains rate reduction because they saw it as a budget buster in the long run, and of 

course, given our theology, felt that it distributed benefits to the 

well-to-do. So that was the setting. Now, where reconciliation 

comes in is that Senator Dole, having lost in the Finance Committee, decided it would be a good idea to try and attach the capital gains tax cuts on the floor . . . to the reconciliation bill. 

He had a majority of votes to do that because there were five 

or six Democratic Senators, who for various reasons decided capital 

gains tax cuts were appropriate. So that’s where the issue of reconciliation came to the floor. The Democratic majority didn’t have 

the votes to defeat on a straight up or down vote. The tack that 

we took, which I am proud to say I am the person that suggested 

this to Majority Leader Mitchell, was to strip the reconciliation 

bill of all extraneous provisions. So Mitchell went to the Senate 

floor and said listen, this reconciliation process has gotten out of 

94 

hand in the sense that all the committees are now loading it up 

with not just stark budget savings but with all these extraneous 

provisions, let’s return reconciliation process to its intended view 

or purpose and strip every extraneous provision. . . . We stripped 

literally hundreds of extraneous provisions out of the reconciliation 

bill. . . . 

So we had the Byrd Rule which without it we were toast in 

terms of stripping the reconciliation bill and beating capital 

gains. . . . We had the votes, but our strategy, which I think was 

the right one, is rather than let the issue be capital gains . . . 

it was to subsume that issue under the broader one of reconciliation. 

1990 Agreements: Budget Enforcement Act, Andrews Air Force 

Base Summit 

Mr. Stein: The debate out at Andrews was largely partisan. You 

had Ranking Member Domenici really wanting to control entitlements. You had Chairman Sasser thinking that we were spending 

too much on defense. You had Senator Byrd adamantly feeling as 

though the nondefense discretionary portion of the budget was 

taking the biggest hit for no particular reason. Then you had a 

variety of people who really wanted to improve the process. 

There were members and key staff. You have CBO Director 

Robert D. Reischauer down in the bowels of the thing, with his 

computer contingent that would crunch numbers. There were long 

days and nights. The meetings that everyone was going to were 

not the meetings where everything was happening. You would 

have Dick Darman, Director of the OMB, getting together with 

Senator Byrd, Darman getting together with Representative Dan 

Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Darman getting together with Senator Leon Panetta, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and that is where the real 

work was done. 

f 

The capital gains tax cut was what Senator Gingrich and the 

crowd wanted to do. Capital gains was where the Republican Party 

wanted to go. The belief was that if you cut capital gains the revenue influx and the stimulative effect would be such that it would 

essentially wash out all of the budgetary problems. So, those were 

kind of the four corners of the debate out there. Process was anything but subtle. We would find that we would debate entitlements. We would debate defense. We would debate tax cuts. And 

then, when everyone was too tired to do anything else, we would 

talk about the budget process. Curiously enough, I think it was 

the budget process improvements that had the most lasting effect. 

95 

What we did relative to GRH was to do some things that were 

real refinements and that actually ended up working. So, instead 

of having the appropriators take the hit for what the Finance 

Committee did, we had pay-as-you-go, which was, I think, the 

most critical element of the whole endeavor. You had the separate 

caps. 

That [pay-as-you-go] to my mind, was the most significant accomplishment. It took what had been a crude macro approach to 

the mechanisms of control, refined those mechanisms and focused 

them specifically so that the committees that did something would 

get punished for doing it or rewarded for doing it. And that, I 

think, worked. 

Mr. Dauster: The 1990 agreement was different because the 

budget process was consciously adapted to the agreement that we 

had reached on the substance. It was the Budget Enforcement Act. 

It was a process set up to enforce the agreement that we reached 

on the substance, and it was intended to be linked together. So 

there was a philosophy involved in linking the two and making 

them relate to each other. 

It was a bipartisan deal. The essential parties, meaning no disrespect to congressional Republicans, were the President and the 

Democratic leadership. And it could not have been done without 

either of the two. And Darman, therefore, took on a great deal 

of authority in negotiating and would do some deals without full 

congressional Republican backing. I think that is, I guess, one reason why Senator Newt Gingrich felt the way that he did. And at 

the very end of the negotiations, Darman did some of the negotiating directly with Senator Byrd on how the appropriation process 

would work, and it was just the two of them working it out. 

Mr. Hilley: Without the political leadership of President H.W. 

Bush [in 1990], it would not have happened. He stood his ground 

and passed a $500 billion 5-year deficit reduction agreement. He 

stood his ground even as his House Republican caucus split wide 

open, and Senator Newt Gingrich [minority whip] led a rebellion 

from the right and swept away the votes in the House to support 

it. The first time, they had to come back and then they passed 

it with largely Democratic votes. Senator Gingrich did not bring 

his guys back. A tremendous amount of credit belongs to George 

H.W. Bush. . . . 

The dynamic was this—Darman was a smart man. Senators 

Domenici and Dole were smart guys, and everyone knew the score. 

We passed the budget resolution out of the Committee and Senator Leon Panetta, who was chairman of the House Budget ComVerDate jan 13 2004 11:54 May 09, 2007 Jkt 028749 PO 00000 Frm 00109 Fmt 5935 Sfmt 5935 C:\DOCS\BUDGET\28749.TXT CRS1 PsN: SKAYNE
96 

mittee, was able to pass it out of his committee and across the 

floor, which was easier considering the votes—how the House 

works. We were demonstrating that we could move a budget resolution, and it was a very clear signal to the administration that 

we are on our own. It was 3 or 4 days after that Leaders Tom 

Foley, George Mitchell, and Dick Gephardt went to the White 

House for a meeting with the President and Dick Darman, and 

they agreed to this, quite transparent, at least according to the 

headlines, they agreed to this paragraph that said that everything 

was on the table—the need for entitlement reform and all of the 

legitimate things, but also enhanced revenues. That was code word 

that you would go along as part of an agreement and increase 

taxes. 

1993 Agreement: OBRA 

Mr. Hilley: Just as I want to credit George H.W. Bush with 

doing the right thing and taking a political slam, President Clinton and the Democrats did the right thing [in 1993, in terms of 

deficit reduction], but the timing was worse for the Congress . . . 

the health care meltdown and other issues were largely at play too. 

If you had to point to the number one event for the loss of the 

House and the Senate in 1994, it was the tax increase. I don’t 

think that it could have been done in a bipartisan way. They did 

the right substantive thing, but paid an enormous political price 

for it. 

Mr. Stein: The Clinton budget was probably much more, in a 

lot of ways, interesting than Andrews because it was the most partisan thing that had happened up in the Congress in my lifetime 

here. It was pretty amazing. You had Vice President Gore breaking a tie twice to get it passed. Every Democrat who looked at 

President Clinton’s budget understood the political damage that it 

was going to do to them when they voted for it. . . . That was the toughest thing I have ever worked on in my life, 

holding that together. It was extremely difficult. I was not in the 

room when it happened, but Senator Bob Kerrey could have sunk 

it and knew it. There were a variety of reasons that he did not. 

I think Senator Tom Daschle and Senator Harry Reid talked him 

out of it, for one thing, but it was Senator Byrd who really talked 

him out of it. 

f 

I am the only one who has this recollection, but it was about 

3 o’clock in the morning after we passed the reconciliation bill, 

because the other one, when we passed it (not the conference report but the Senate version) was about 4 o’clock in the morning, 

97 

but we got President Clinton on the phone. Vice President Gore 

was in there and had just made the tie breaking vote. Senator 

Mitchell, Chairman Sasser, and Senator Moynihan, who was not 

very helpful, and they got President Clinton on the line. I think 

the first thing out of his mouth was, ‘‘I really appreciate this. I 

can govern now.’’ Now, I am the only one who remembers it that 

way, but I am almost certain that he said that. I think he was 

right. 

f 

Chairman Sasser thought he was doing the right thing [voting 

for the 1993 Clinton budget]. The electorate performed as expected. You stand up for principle, and they stand up and knock 

you down. I think the mythology became, or maybe it is not mythology, that the reason President Bush lost was that he violated 

his no new tax pledge. The whole class that came in subsequent 

to 1990 was steeped in that version of history, right or wrong. 

You had the belief that Democrats had more or less suborned 

Bush into violating his pledge. There was almost a continuous rising trend of bitterness between the two parties that really predated 

that. 

f 

We considered trying to find a way to use reconciliation to do 

the Clinton health plan. Chairman Sasser went over with Dauster 

[majority counsel] to talk to Senator Byrd about it. Byrd was initially interested and then said, flatly, ‘‘No. It is a violation of the 

process. We will regret it. It will be misused later on.’’ We folded 

up our tents and left. In reflection, I thought that was an act of 

courage on his part. 

1997 Agreement: Balanced Budget Act 

Mr. Stein: The way it was done was very artful, but what really 

happened is that you had divided government, and each side had 

its own interests that could be satisfied by a deal. President Clinton needed to be able to put his stamp on balancing the budget 

and so did Speaker Newt Gingrich and Leader Trent Lott, who 

were actually really good during that period. I mean, they were 

fun to work with. That may have been one bright, shining moment. . . . 

f 

There were three significant events, in terms of getting to a 

point of balance. . . . There was Andrews, which was more important for some of the process changes that it made than anything else. A lot of policy determinations were pretty crude. What 

98 

we spend our time deliberatively considering was tossed out and 

revamped in the House after that agreement failed. Then there was 

the Clinton 1994 budget, which, in my judgment, probably carried the greatest weight, other than the macro economy, which 

was, obviously, the most important thing. Then the 1997 agreement, that people actually say, we might have gotten a balance 

without it. That is the way it looks in hindsight. All three of 

those things were extremely important. 

Mr. Hoagland: The real success was the 1997 Balanced Budget 

Agreement with Chairman Domenici, Chairman Kasich, Senator 

Lautenberg, and Representative Spratt. The Balanced Budget 

Agreement was the major success of this Committee. When we 

were working with the Clinton administration and John Hilley, 

White House Legislative Director; Bob Rubin, Treasury Secretary; 

Franklin Raines, OMB Director; Jack Lew, OMB Deputy Director; 

Senator Lautenberg, the ranking member at the time; Bruce King, 

minority staff director; and myself, there was a free flow of information. We kept each other informed. 

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) 

Ms. McGuire: The relationship with CBO has always been excellent. Sometimes the Members do not like what CBO has to say, 

but they always respect them and almost without exception, feel 

that they are nonpartisan. Alice Rivlin was the first Director and 

worked hard to build good relationships with the Budget Committee and the leadership. She paved the way for CBO, and it is 

much the same as when she set it up long ago. People that were 

at the formative stage really thought it through and wanted to establish something that would be effective and last. 

Mr. Bell: The Budget Act has worked in ways that most of its 

authors had not anticipated or envisioned. You know now you 

can’t hide. If you bring a bill to the floor you have to get a CBO 

score. Then it goes to the Budget Committee chairman [to compare it to the budget resolution, and if it exceeds the budget resolution, any Member may raise a point of order against the bill]. 

Then the Parliamentarian tells the Presiding Officer this is a violation of the Budget Act. The guy in the chair says, ‘‘Point of order, 

well founded.’’ During the first reconciliation conference [1981], 

the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee was Representative Dan Rostenkowski. He decided he was going to break 

up this Budget Committee bill. So during the conference related 

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99 

kowski turned to Senator Domenici and said ‘‘You know, we don’t 

agree with the CBO numbers.’’ 

Sid Brown [chief of budget review] and I looked at each other, 

quizzically. Senator Domenici said ‘‘Well, what do you mean?’’ 

Representative Rostenkowski replied, ‘‘Well this one should be $1 

billion instead of $2 billion.’’ So he decided to use his own numbers. Senator Domenici replied ‘‘No, we use the numbers that 

CBO came out with because that’s what the law says.’’ Representative Rostenkowski replied, ‘‘This isn’t a matter of law this is a 

matter of convention. My numbers are just as good as CBO’s, and 

I want to use mine, and I have the votes.’’ Now remember this 

is Gramm-Latta so the Democrats had a majority in the House. 

They also held a huge majority in the conference because they 

stacked the deck. Senator Domenici said, ‘‘You have the votes?’’ 

Representative Rostenkowski replied, ‘‘Why yes, I do.’’ 

So Senator Domenici turned to me and said ‘‘Would you go 

poll the Senate conferees tonight? Mr. Rostenkowski says he has 

the votes and that sufficiently worries me because I know the reputation of the gentleman from Illinois.’’ That night I called up all 

of the conferees on the House and Senate side, both Republican 

and Democratic, to deliver the message. So the next day Domenici 

started off by saying ‘‘I’ve asked all my conferees to be here to 

take a vote.’’ 

At that point Representative Rostenkowski knew he messed 

with the wrong Italian. Domenici said, ‘‘Last evening you made 

a motion as chairman of the conference, and today we are having 

a vote.’’ He went down the line from the most junior to senior 

and all were on Senator Domenici’s side. [Senator Domenici says] 

‘‘Now if you wish to make another offer that you can get your 

conferees to agree on, we could entertain it. Otherwise this subject 

is closed.’’ 

Contemporary Budgeting 

Mr. Hoagland: The globalization of the economy has changed 

our ability to impact fiscal policy . . . ; it seems to me you could 

almost track the history of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act with economic theory and globalization, 

and I think you would find that we’re less certain about what decisions we make here, how that will impact inflation, employment, 

and growth, at least in the short term, than we used to be. 

Early on we thought we were certain that if we reduced the deficit everything would be fine. That’s not certain today, and as 

time has gone on, and it’s lessened the impact of the decisions that 

we make here in this Committee, because people say, ‘‘What do 

you care? We’re in deficits. You got low interest rates. The econoVerDate jan 13 2004 11:54 May 09, 2007 Jkt 028749 PO 00000 Frm 00113 Fmt 5935 Sfmt 5935 C:\DOCS\BUDGET\28749.TXT CRS1 PsN: SKAYNE
100 

my’s growing. Why do you care, Hoagland?’’ And my fear with 

that, of course, is that’s in the current time period, not looking 

into the future. 

Mr. Marshall: I was sitting at my desk watching the Senate 

floor one morning, and the Homeland Security/Governmental Affairs Committee was considering a resolution to change their name 

to Homeland Security and grab all this authority from other committees. It just hit me like a lightning bolt, listening to Senator 

Collins [chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee] speak, 

‘‘This is our opportunity!’’ I immediately dialed Mary Naylor [minority staff director] and said (I don’t even remember if I told any 

of my own staff), ‘‘Let’s go down and take back our jurisdiction.’’ 

It was just bing, bam, boom, everybody decided, yeah, let’s go do 

it. 

Frankly, to his credit, Ranking Member Conrad is the one who 

pulled that off for us in the end. Senators Voinovich and Collins 

were very much opposed to us. It was the one hook Senator 

Voinovich had to play in budget policy because he wasn’t on the 

Budget Committee, and he didn’t want to lose that venue. 

They held our amendment over to have a vote the next morning, and Chairman Nickles had some other commitment, and he 

was not going to be able to arrive at the vote until after it had 

started. I knew that it was going to be critical that he and Ranking Member Conrad be in the well to grab Senators when they 

came down to explain it, because it wasn’t the easiest thing for 

people to grasp. Most people had no idea that the Government Affairs Committee had this jurisdiction to start with. 

Chairman Nickles got there late, and I sat and watched Members come in, and as the Republicans came in, Senators Voinovich 

or Collins would grab them and talk them into voting against our 

amendment. I was sitting there thinking we’re going to lose this 

because we don’t have anybody to work the well on our side. 

Meanwhile, on the other side, Senator Conrad was working his 

guys and because of the efforts he made, we passed the amendment. 

f 

That [the Iraq War] was one of the biggest things that dominated the budget process and the Committee’s work in general. 

We were going through a big transition already due to the homeland security issue, and we had just created the new department. 

People were still trying to figure out how do you fund this new 

agency, how is it accounted for, and the horror of trying to figure 

out how are we going to compare spending to prior years? We 

all know a big thing for Chairman Nickles was, ‘‘I want to be 

101 

able to compare this year to last year.’’ He didn’t like the answer, 

‘‘We can’t do that.’’ Some people wanted to create a homeland security budget function. So we were already wrestling with that 

and its impact on the budget process, and we had big expenditures 

for that. 

f 

Many Members were frustrated over the years with the process 

of considering budget resolutions, the vote-a-ramas, with every 

amendment a set-up for a political ad. I absolutely have to give 

Eric Ueland, who’s now chief of staff for the majority leader, who 

at that time was in the whip office with me, the credit for the 

idea of getting rid of precatory amendments on budget resolutions. 

We tried to do it by fiat, by just telling the Parliamentarian, 

‘‘Rule these out of order,’’ and discovered that wouldn’t work. 

There was eventually an amendment to the budget resolution on 

the floor. 

It was an effort to try to influence what Senators can do on the 

floor. I think the reason why we’ve seen it [the prohibition of 

precatory amendments] be somewhat ineffective is because of the 

very basic nature of the Senate. It’s very difficult to make Senators 

do something they don’t want to do, or to change the basic nature 

of the Senate, which is unlimited debate, unlimited amendments. 

You can try and draw boxes around them, which the budget process does, but it’s very hard to do. Efforts to both do away with 

vote-a-rama or come up with ways to curtail vote-a-rama or 

amendments which don’t really have any meaning are worthwhile. 

I don’t think that’s a bad thing to try to do. You should never 

go into it thinking that you’re going to be supremely successful, 

because people will find a way to get around it. There’s too many 

clever staff that can use the basic rules of the Senate to get around 

it one way or the other. 

What I think we discovered, even with all our frustration with 

those types of amendments and vote-a-rama, in 2004 working on 

the FY2005 resolution, was that a much more effective way to get 

at that is to do a better job of cooperating with your minority 

floor manager. We were able to do a resolution that year in a short 

period of time with no vote-a-rama and for the most part, most 

of the amendments being substantive, good amendments, because 

both Senator Nickles and Senator Conrad decided that they were 

going to actively manage the guys on their side of the aisle with 

the help of their leaders on both sides as well. They said let’s get 

up priority amendments, let’s not hang around here just staring 

at one another for hours. Let’s start to get them up and get votes 

early in the process so that you don’t wait until the last day and 

get them considered. So, you can try to create procedural ways to 

102 

control the situation, or you can actively try and manage it better, 

and I think we found that year that managing it works better. 

Reflections on the Budget Process and Committee 

Successes and Challenges 

Mr. Hoagland: I have to be bold as to say, we survived, the 

Committee survived. It was not a given that this new, and I still 

refer to it as the ‘‘new congressional budget appropriation process,’’ 

would make it. There had been efforts before that had failed. 

You’ve survived these many years, and you’ve established yourself, 

there is a raison d’eˆtre, and we’re still here and the fact that we 

haven’t been disbanded is somewhat a success in and of itself for 

the Committee. 

The successes of the Committee over the years have been that 

you have become a focal point. It’s hard for any of us who weren’t 

here before, to appreciate that legislation would come to the Senate floor, authorize, appropriate, who cared? There wasn’t a good 

way to account for the various decisions. Today, at least, there is 

a recognition in the Congress that spending does matter or taxes 

do matter, that fiscal policy still has a basis in policy formulation. 

We never were the popular Committee particularly when we 

started to use our tools of enforcement. That has made people recognize the importance and the consequences of the decision that 

they make. Whether they want to go ahead with it or not, that’s 

their decision. They are the elected officials, and they can go ahead 

or not, but to me the big success is that we at least made it clear 

that their decisions do have consequences, governing is budgeting 

and budgeting is governing, and now it’s an integral part of the 

process. 

Mr. McEvoy: Nobody knew what the budget process was, and 

there was a considerable portion of the Senate, and even more so 

in the House, that profoundly distrusted it or didn’t distrust it 

so much as they were worried about ceding their own power to 

it. As it was, they saw the potential for the budget process to become what it has, an instrumentality for the executive branch to 

implement its will through the budget process. Nobody dreamed 

of doing it through reconciliation then. It was more fear of kind 

of the House of Lords, that the Budget Committee majority would 

go on retreat with the President, and they’d decide between themselves what the priorities were going to be and then they’d come 

up and impose them on the Congress. The House dealt with that 

and their own institutional prerogatives by profoundly weakening 

the process over there by creating a two-term limit on the chair 

103 

and on the Committee. That Committee turned over faster than 

a roulette wheel. 

Mr. Dauster: The budget process, in its defense, must be described as complex, partly because it has developed like sediment, 

one layer upon another, never digging up the other layers. We had 

a simple budget process in 1816 when the Finance Committee did 

it, and then with the unfortunateness of 1867, half of the Finance 

Committee’s jurisdiction was wrested away from it. There was this 

other Budget Committee formed, subsequently called the Appropriations Committee. And yet they kept the Finance Committee. 

In the 1974 Act, they layered on again this thing that they 

didn’t think would really get in their way, the Budget Committee, 

and the budget process, and left the Appropriations Committee 

and the Finance Committee. Notwithstanding our efforts, all these 

different layers are on there, so it’s probably because of the history 

that it is as complex as it is. 

f 

I think there have been three eras in the budget process under 

the Congressional Budget Act. There was the period in which the 

process was one of budget neutrality between enactment of the 

Budget Act and 1981, and it’s remarkable that they made it work. 

And there was a period from 1981 through 1996 when there was 

a thumb on the scale toward deficit reduction, and I think that’s 

necessary and useful. It was necessary in the initial instance because the Reagan tax cuts were so large, and we were not beginning to offset them as Reagan wanted us to, so we had to figure 

out a way to bring balance. Gramm-Rudman was a crude effort 

to do that, and I think that the Budget Enforcement Act was a 

more effective way of doing that. So it is useful to have structures 

that make it more difficult to cut taxes or spend money. Since 

1996, we’ve had a system that’s tilted toward tax cuts, that allows 

tax cuts but doesn’t allow spending, and that’s led to the fiscal 

results that we have. 

So, I think that it’s useful as well to structure reconciliation 

back the way that it was in the 1980s where it could only be used 

in one direction, toward deficit reduction. It’s arguable whether it 

would be better not to have reconciliation at all because it does 

such violence to the basic idea of the Senate. I’ve played reconciliation from both sides, so I can make the argument either way. The 

question then is: is the fiscal policy of the Nation so important 

that we want to ensure that it happens to the exclusion of other 

values that the Senate maintains, values of deliberative process? 

And I’m not sure that fiscal policy is that important. One could 

make the argument, for example, that national security policy is 

104 

just as important; why don’t we do national security policy 

through fast-track mechanisms as opposed to fully debating defense bills? 

In the end, we have a question of how responsive a government 

we want. Do we want a responsive government that can react 

quickly and change with the times, but change dramatically with 

the times? In which case you want to empower the reconciliation 

process and leave it as it is . . . or do we want to constrain these 

processes so that we force consensus more and have a less responsive government and have more checks on what the government 

is doing? Having done both sides, I’ve come to view the deliberative process as the more important goal. If I were to do it all over, 

I’d try to find ways to constrain the ability of the Senate to use 

reconciliation wherever possible. And so my recommendation 

would be to expand the Byrd rule. 

Ms. McGuire: The Budget Committee still thinks that it is the 

outsider. The other committees still have not accepted the budget 

process or the Budget Committee’s role in that process, as hard 

as we have tried. I don’t think that the budget process has been 

integrated into the other congressional processes as it should be. 

That has been resisted by the Members. As I told Scott Gudes 

when he became the staff director of the Budget Committee [in 

2005], ‘‘Congratulations on your appointment. Now you will 

know what it is like to be loved and hated. When you were an 

appropriator you were loved when you said yes and hated when 

you said no. Now you will just be hated because you will always 

have to say no.’’ 

It is not the most fun Committee to be on because generally 

you have to keep people on the straight and narrow, and they resent that. It is uncomfortable for them. At times, the Committee 

is seen as the skunk at the garden party. Often we don’t have the 

most positive message that people want to hear, so it is hard to 

integrate the Budget Committee fully into the other congressional 

processes. The other would be just the fact that it is hard to make 

the public policy stands sometimes. Even though most of the 

chairmen have been willing to go out and wage the good fight, 

oftentimes they come back bruised and bloodied. It is a function 

of the way that Congress works. The good news is that we have 

always had chairmen who are willing to wage the good fight. 

Mr. Hoagland: . . . somehow I might have allowed the reconciliation process to become something much greater than what 

we had initially planned it to be, that it has become, particularly 

in a divided Senate, the tool, the preferred tool for legislating, 

105 

which I think is not what it was intended to be; and failure, yes, 

that I still believe that reconciliation, even though I’m sure I will 

be judged harshly on this, that reconciliation should be used only 

for deficit reduction. . . . 

Why isn’t reconciliation used only for deficit reduction? Well, 

if it’s for deficit reduction, why do you have those tax cuts? Don’t 

get me wrong, I do not believe the answer to our long-term fiscal 

challenges is to simply increase taxes, but I think you end up 

making it harder to formulate that consensus with the non-tax 

committees. ‘‘Why should I cut agriculture programs if you guys 

are going to go over there and reduce taxes for millionaires?’’ And 

whether the rhetoric is right or wrong, I think it’s difficult to formulate broad-based consensus. 

Mr. Marshall: The Committee allocations are the heart and soul 

of a resolution, and if the Budget Committee, working in cooperation and with the other committees, can come up with realistic 

committee allocations and then aggressively enforce them, that’s 

all you need. 

I’ve become disenchanted over the many years I’ve watched the 

process evolve with anything that tries to say, you can’t do this 

no matter what, which is why I don’t really like the old-style 

paygo. If the Members of Congress agree that we’re going to do 

something like a Medicare drug benefit or we all agree in the 

budget resolution that we’re going to cut taxes, then I hate having 

an arbitrary rule that says, despite the fact that you agree to that, 

you have to have a super majority. I would rather just see more 

involvement in the beginning of the budget process and, again, 

all the other committees being involved to write a budget and 

then live with it. Let the process of writing that budget involve 

all your fights about what you’re going to do, how much you’re 

going to do, but then once you agree on something, that’s it. 

Hardcore enforcement above that and live with it. 

Most of the other process things that we dream up are just duplicative often of the committee allocations. You don’t really need 

three different points of order to enforce the same thing. They’re 

either duplicative of it, or they are ways to try to keep people 

from gaming the system. We now have whole titles of the budget 

resolution dedicated to shutting down games the appropriators 

have dreamed up year in and year out to get around their committee allocation. 

The other thing I would mention is Section 306 of the Budget 

Act. We are the only committee in the Senate that has a point 

of order protecting our jurisdiction, and that is critical. If somebody ever tries to get rid of that or that ever goes away, that 

106 

would likely be the death of the Budget Committee because, we 

have a unique role as the enforcer over the other committees, and 

if they ever get a chance to change our underlying rules themselves willy-nilly, anytime they want to on the floor, we’re 

toast. . . . So Sections 302 and 306, that’s all you need. Get rid 

of all the rest of it. 

f 

Even people who live the budget process for years and years can 

still, on an almost daily basis, have brand new issues come up 

about its interpretation that nobody ever thought of before and 

that require extensive discussions with the Parliamentarians and 

with the majority and minority and the other body. So it is a constantly evolving thing. 

It’s very difficult when everybody has their interpretation that 

fits what they want to do. The Parliamentarians are the ones who 

have to be the referees and say, ‘‘Well, you can do this’’ or ‘‘You 

can’t do that.’’ Sometimes they make you happy when they agree 

with you, and sometimes they make you very mad when they do 

not. And you most often remember the times that they made you 

mad, but it’s a job that you couldn’t pay me enough to do. I 

wouldn’t want to have to make those calls. 

Mr. Bell: The most important thing we ever did was to make 

sure that you could not amend the Budget Act on the floor of the 

U.S. Senate unless it was in response to something that had been 

reported out of the Budget Committee. As long as the Committee 

understood its fragile history and its fragile existence, then we 

would be in good shape. 

Mr. Hilley: The saddest thing that we did not do [as part of 

the 1997 Balanced Budget Act] was to only extend the paygo and 

the caps for 5 years instead of 10. . . . If there is one thing that 

I would suggest . . . [it] would be to reinstate paygo and the caps 

[on discretionary spending]. If we ever get to a bipartisan agreement again, those should be set in stone. They can’t fill the hole, 

but they can keep it from getting bigger. That is something that 

the Budget Committee on a bipartisan basis should be in favor 

of . . . . 

f 

The other problem is that reconciliation has lost its true sense 

which is to go back to the days where it was really for deficit reduction rather than the train for everything else that people want 

to do. . . . It is very disruptive to the institution at large. 

107 

Mr. Hoagland: One of those images that will always stick in 

my mind, the image I want to retain about this institution when 

I leave is we were on the floor late one night, one of those typical 

1 o’clock, 2 o’clock in the mornings, in the early days, Senator 

Dole didn’t have any problem going all night. Coming down those 

elevators, nobody else was around, I was leaving by myself. As I 

came down the elevators and getting to the escalators to get onto 

the tram, there were two elderly Senators in front of me, Senator 

Helms and Senator Pell, about as far apart politically as anyone 

could be on the political spectrum. They were both having difficulty walking, and Senator Helms was helping Senator Pell, with 

his arm around him, to get onto the tram. I thought to myself, 

you know, he didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to do it for 

the public. He didn’t know I was behind them. But it’s that kind 

of image I want to retain, that despite the political differences, 

they’re still human beings, and they respected one another, as 

human beings. 

109 

Listing of Chairmen and Ranking Members 

(Democrats in italic; Republicans in roman) 

CHAIRMAN 

Edmund S. Muskie, Maine July 25, 1974–May 7, 1980 1

Ernest F. Hollings, South Carolina May 13, 1980–January 5, 1981 1

Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico January 5, 1981–January 6, 1987 

Lawton Chiles, Florida January 6, 1987–January 3, 1989 

Jim Sasser, Tennessee February 2, 1989–January 4, 1995 

Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico January 6, 1995–January 3, 2001 

Kent Conrad, North Dakota January 3, 2001–January 20, 2001 2

Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico January 20, 2001–June 6, 2001 2

Kent Conrad, North Dakota June 6, 2001–January 15, 2003 2

Don Nickles, Oklahoma January 15, 2003–January 4, 2005 

Judd Gregg, New Hampshire January 6, 2005–January 4, 2007 

RANKING MEMBER 

Peter H. Dominick, Colorado August 7, 1974–January 14, 1975 

Henry Bellmon, Oklahoma January 23, 1975–January 5, 1981 

Ernest F. Hollings, South Carolina January 5, 1981–January 3, 1983 

Lawton Chiles, Florida January 3, 1983–January 6, 1987 

Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico January 6, 1987–January 6, 1995 

J. James Exon, Nebraska January 6, 1995–January 7, 1997 

Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey January 9, 1997–January 3, 2001 

Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico January 3, 2001–January 20, 2001 2

Kent Conrad, North Dakota January 20, 2001–June 6, 2001 2

Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico June 6, 2001–January 15, 2003 2

Kent Conrad, North Dakota January 15, 2003–January 4, 2007 

1 Senator Muskie resigned on May 7, 1980, to become Secretary of State. Pursuant to S. Res. 

429, adopted by the Senate on May 13, 1980, Senator Hollings became chair. 2 From the convening of the 107th Congress on January 3, 2001, until the inauguration of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney 17 days later on January 20, the 

Senate was evenly divided between the two parties (with 50 Democratic and 50 Republican Senators). Democrats held the majority, however, due to the deciding vote of outgoing Democratic Vice 

President Albert Gore. During this period, Senator Kent Conrad served as chairman and Senator 

Pete V. Domenici served as ranking member of the Budget Committee. Beginning on January 20, 

the evenly-divided Senate came under the control of the Republican Party due to the deciding vote 

of Vice President Cheney. Accordingly, the Committee leadership positions of Senators Conrad and 

Domenici were reversed, effective with Committee assignments announced on January 25. On May 

24, 2001, Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont switched his party affiliation from Republican to 

Independent and began to caucus with the Democrats, effective June 6, 2001. At that point, the 

50 Democratic Senators, plus Senator Jeffords, held a 51 to 49 advantage over the Republicans, 

and the positions of Senators Conrad and Domenici were reversed again, effective with Committee 

assignments announced on July 10. Senator Conrad served as chairman and Senator Domenici served 

as ranking member for the remainder of the 107th Congress. 

110 

EDMUND S. MUSKIE 

of Maine 

Chairman 


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111 

Biographies of Chairmen and Ranking Members 

EDMUND S. MUSKIE 

A Democrat from Maine, Edmund Sixtus Muskie was the Committee’s first chairman, serving from July 25, 1974 to May 7, 

1980, when he was appointed Secretary of State. 

Born in Rumford, ME, on March 28, 1914, Muskie attended 

public school and graduated from Bates College, ME, in 1936, and 

Cornell University Law School, NY, in 1939. Admitted to the 

Massachusetts bar in 1939 and the Maine bar in 1940, Muskie 

commenced law practice in Waterville, ME. During the Second 

World War, Muskie enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in the 

Atlantic and Asiatic-Pacific Theaters from 1942 to 1945. Elected 

to the Maine House of Representatives in 1946, 1948, and 1950, 

Muskie was the Democratic floor leader from 1949 through 1951. 

In 1954, he was elected Governor of the heavily Republican State 

and served until 1959. 

In 1958, Muskie was the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate by Maine voters. He was reelected in 1964, 1970, and 1976, 

and served from January 3, 1959 until his resignation on May 7, 

1980 to enter the Cabinet of President Jimmy Carter as Secretary 

of State. Muskie, an environmentalist and sponsor of the Clean Air 

and Clean Water Acts of the 1970s, gained national prominence 

in 1968 when he ran as the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for 

Vice President of the United States. In 1972, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Awarded 

the Presidential Medal of Freedom on January 16, 1981, Muskie 

was a member of the President’s Special Review Board (known as 

the Tower Commission) that investigated the Iran-Contra scandal 

in 1987. He practiced law while a resident of Washington, DC, 

until his death on March 26, 1996. He is interred at Arlington 

National Cemetery in Virginia. 

112 

PETER H. DOMINICK 

of Colorado 

Ranking Member 


28749.001
113 

PETER H. DOMINICK 

Peter Hoyt Dominick, a Republican from Colorado, served as 

the first ranking member from August 7, 1974 to January 14, 

1975. 

Born in Stamford, CT, on July 7, 1915, Dominick, the nephew 

of former Senator Howard Alexander Smith, attended public 

schools and graduated from St. Mark’s School in 1933, Yale University in 1937, and Yale Law School in 1940. During the Second 

World War, Dominick entered the Army Air Corps as an aviation 

cadet and served until 1945 when discharged as a captain. He engaged in law practice in New York City from 1940 to 1942, and 

1946, and in Denver, CO, from 1946 to 1961. Dominick served 

as a member of the Colorado House of Representatives from 1957 

to 1961 and the National Commission for the United Nations 

Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization from 1960 to 

1961. 

Elected U.S. Representative in 1960, Dominick served from 

1961 to 1963 and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962. Reelected in 1968, Dominick served from 1963 to 1975 and was an 

unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1974. In 1975, Dominick 

served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Switzerland. A resident of Cherry Hills, CO, until his death in Hobe 

Sound, FL, March 18, 1981, Dominick is interred in Fairmount 

Cemetery, Denver, CO. 

114 

HENRY BELLMON 

of Oklahoma 

Ranking Member 


28749.017
115 

HENRY BELLMON 

Henry Louis Bellmon, a Republican from Oklahoma, served as 

ranking member during his entire service on the Committee, from 

January 23, 1975 to January 5, 1981. 

Born on a farm near Tonkawa, OK, on September 3, 1921, 

Bellmon attended Noble County public schools and graduated 

from Oklahoma State University and then Oklahoma A&M College in 1942. A farmer and rancher, Bellmon served in the U.S. 

Marine Corps from 1942 to 1946 and the Oklahoma House of 

Representatives from 1946 to 1948. The State Republican chairman in 1960, Bellmon was elected Oklahoma’s first Republican 

Governor in 1962 and served from 1963 to 1967. While in office, 

Bellmon was chairman of the Interstate Oil Compact Commission 

and a member of the executive committee of the National Governors Conference. 

Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1968 and reelected in 1974, 

Bellmon served from January 3, 1969 to January 5, 1981, and was 

not a candidate for reelection in 1980. Cofounder and cochairman 

of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Bellmon was 

appointed director of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services in 1983 and elected Governor of Oklahoma for a second time 

in 1986. He is a resident of Red Rock, OK. 

116 

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS 

of South Carolina 

Chairman and Ranking Member 


28749.016
117 

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS 

A Democrat from South Carolina, Ernest Frederick ‘‘Fritz’’ Hollings served as chairman from May 13, 1980 to January 5, 1981 

and ranking member from January 5, 1981 to January 3, 1983. 

A member for 30 years, from 1974 to 2005, Hollings has the second longest term of Committee service. 

Born in Charleston, SC, on January 1, 1922, Hollings attended 

the public schools of Charleston, and graduated from The Citadel 

in 1942, and the University of South Carolina Law School in 

1947. Hollings was admitted to the bar in 1947 and commenced 

law practice in Charleston. He served in the U.S. Army from 1942 

to 1945 and was elected to the South Carolina General Assembly 

in 1948, 1950, and 1952. In 1954, Hollings was elected Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina, and in 1958 he was elected Governor, serving from 1959 to 1963. 

A Presidential appointee to several Federal commissions, Hollings was elected in a special election on November 8, 1966, to 

the U.S. Senate to complete the remaining term of Olin D. Johnston. Reelected in 1968, 1974, 1980, 1986, 1992, and 1998, serving from November 9, 1966 to January 3, 2005, Hollings chaired 

the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation for the 

100th through 103rd and 107th (January 3–20, 2001; June 6, 

2001–January 3, 2003) Congresses. Serving for 37 years, the seventh longest term of service in the Senate, Hollings was a fiscal 

conservative, and one of the namesakes for the Gramm-RudmanHollings Act, an attempt to bring the Federal budget deficit 

under control. An unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 1984, Hollings was 

not a candidate for reelection to the Senate in 2004. 

118 

PETE V. DOMENICI 

of New Mexico 

Chairman and Ranking Member 


28749.018
119 

PETE V. DOMENICI 

A Republican from New Mexico, Pete Vichi Domenici has the 

distinction of holding the record for the longest service in all positions on the Committee. Domenici served as chairman from 1981 

to 1987 and from 1995 to 2001,1 ranking member from 1987 to 

1995 and 2001 1 to 2003, and member for 31 years, serving from 

1975 to the present. 

Born in Albuquerque, NM, on May 7, 1932, Domenici graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1954 and the University of Denver Law School in 1958. Admitted to the New Mexico bar in 1958, Domenici commenced practice in Albuquerque 

and was elected to the Albuquerque City Commission in 1966 and 

chairman (ex-officio mayor) in 1967. 

After an unsuccessful bid for Governor in 1970, Domenici was 

elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972, the first New Mexico Republican to be elected to the position in 38 years. Reelected in 1978, 

1984, 1990, 1996, and again in 2002 for the term ending January 

3, 2009, Domenici has served longer than any other New Mexican 

Senator in history and is currently ranked fifth in seniority in the 

Senate and is second among Republican Senators. An expert on 

budget and energy matters, Domenici has served as chairman of 

the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for the 108th 

and 109th Congresses and chairman of the Energy and Water Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations for the 104th 

through 109th Congresses. 

1 In 2001, Senator Domenici served as ranking member from January 3, 2001 

to January 25, 2001 and from July 10, 2001 on (through the end of the 107th 

Congress), and served as chairman from January 25, 2001 to July 10, 2001. 

120 

LAWTON CHILES 

of Florida 

Chairman and Ranking Member 


28749.028
121 

LAWTON CHILES 

A Democrat from Florida, Lawton Mainor Chiles, Jr. served as 

chairman from January 6, 1987 to January 3, 1989, when he retired from the Senate. A member of the Committee for 15 years, 

beginning in 1974, Chiles also served as ranking member from 

1983 to 1987. 

Born in Lakeland, FL, on April 3, 1930, Chiles attended public 

schools and graduated from the University of Florida in 1952 and 

from the law school of the same university in 1955. Chiles served 

in the U.S. Army as an artillery officer during the Korean conflict 

from 1953 to 1954, and was later admitted to the Florida bar and 

commenced practice in Lakeland in 1955. A businessman, banker, 

and industrial developer, Chiles served as a member of the Florida 

House of Representatives from 1958 to 1966, the Florida State 

Senate from 1966 to 1970, and was chairman of the Florida Law 

Revision Commission from 1968 to 1970. 

With strong grassroots popularity, Chiles was elected to the 

U.S. Senate in 1970, reelected in 1976, and again in 1982 for the 

term ending January 3, 1989. He was not a candidate for reelection in 1988. A health care and children’s advocate, Chiles served 

as chairman of the Special Committee on Aging from 1979 to 

1980, and was elected Governor of Florida in 1990 and reelected 

in 1994; he was not a candidate for reelection in 1998. A resident 

of Tallahassee, FL, until his death on December 12, 1998, Chiles 

is interred in Roselawn Cemetery, Tallahassee, FL. 

122 

JIM SASSER 

of Tennessee 

Chairman 


28749.026
123 

JIM SASSER 

James Ralph Sasser, a Democrat from Tennessee, served as chairman of the Committee from February 2, 1989 to January 4, 1995 

and was a member for 18 years, from 1977 to 1995. 

Born in Memphis, TN, on September 30, 1936, Sasser attended 

the public schools of Nashville, the University of Tennessee from 

1954 to 1955, and graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1958 

and Vanderbilt Law School in 1961. Admitted to the Tennessee 

bar in 1961 and commenced practice in Nashville, Sasser served 

in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve from 1957 to 1963. 

In 1976, Sasser was elected to the U.S. Senate and reelected in 

1982 and 1988, serving from January 3, 1977 to January 3, 1995. 

He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1994. 

A fellow at the Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School 

of Government, Harvard University, 1995, Sasser was appointed 

Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China by President William Jefferson Clinton and served from 1996 to 2001. 

124 

J. JAMES EXON 

of Nebraska 

Ranking Member 


28749.019
125 

J. JAMES EXON 

J. James Exon, a Democrat from Nebraska, served as ranking 

member from 1995 to 1997 and member for 18 years, from 1979 

to 1997, when he retired from the Senate. 

Born in Geddes, SD, on August 9, 1921, Exon attended the 

public schools and the University of Omaha, NE, from 1939 to 

1941. Exon served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps from 1942 to 

1945, and the U.S. Army Reserve from 1945 to 1949. A branch 

manager of a financial corporation, Exon founded an office equipment firm and served as president from 1953 to 1971. In 1964, 

Exon was delegate to the Democratic National Convention and 

served every year through 2004. Exon was chair of the Nebraska 

Democratic Party when he was elected Governor in 1971, a position he held until 1979. 

In 1978, Exon was elected to the U.S. Senate and then reelected 

in 1984 and 1990, serving until his retirement in January 1997. 

After retirement, Exon served on a committee established by Congress to study the threat of weapons of mass destruction. A resident of Lincoln, NE, until his death on June 10, 2005, Exon is 

interred in Wyuka Cemetery, Lincoln, NE. 

126 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG 

of New Jersey 

Ranking Member 


28749.048
127 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG 

Frank Raleigh Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey, served 

as ranking member from January 9, 1997 to January 3, 2001 and 

member for 16 years, from 1985 to 2001. 

Born in Paterson, NJ, on January 23, 1924, Lautenberg graduated from the Columbia University School of Business, NY, in 

1949 and served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps from 1942 to 

1946. Cofounder of the Nation’s first payroll company and commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey 

from 1978 to 1982, Lautenberg was elected to the U.S. Senate in 

1982. In December 1982, he was appointed by the Governor to 

complete the unexpired term of Nicholas F. Brady. Lautenberg was 

reelected in 1988 and 1994 and served from December 27, 1982 

to January 3, 2001, and chose not to run for reelection in 2000. 

Lautenberg was again elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002 for the 

term ending January 3, 2009. 

128 

KENT CONRAD 

of North Dakota 

Chairman and Ranking Member 


28749.027
129 

KENT CONRAD 

A Democrat from North Dakota, Kent Conrad served as chairman for the 107th Congress 1 and ranking member for the 108th 

and 109th Congresses. He joined the Committee in 1987. 

Born in Bismarck, ND, on March 12, 1948, Conrad attended 

the public schools of Bismarck, high school in Tripoli, Libya, the 

University of Missouri, Columbia, 1967, and graduated from Stanford University in 1971 and George Washington University’s 

School of Business in 1975. Conrad served as an assistant to the 

North Dakota tax commissioner from 1974 to 1980, and then won 

his first statewide race for tax commissioner in 1980, serving from 

1981 to 1986, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate for the 

term ending January 3, 1993. Conrad was not a candidate for reelection in 1992, but was elected in a special election on December 4, 1992, to the unexpired portion of the term ending January 

4, 1995, left vacant by the death of Quentin N. Burdick. Conrad 

was reelected in 1994, 2000, and again in 2006 for the term ending January 3, 2013. 

1 In 2001, Senator Conrad served as chairman from January 3, 2001 to January 25, 2001 and from July 10, 2001 on (through the end of the 107th Congress), and served as ranking member from January 25, 2001 to July 10, 2001. 

130 

DON NICKLES 

of Oklahoma 

Chairman 


28749.014
131 

DON NICKLES 

A Republican from Oklahoma, Donald Lee Nickles served as 

chairman for 2003 and 2004 and member for 18 years, from 1987 

to 2005. 

Born in Ponca City, OK, on December 6, 1948, Nickles attended public schools, graduated from Oklahoma State University 

in Stillwater in 1971 and served in the National Guard from 1970 

to 1976. A machine company executive and member of the Oklahoma State Senate from 1979 to 1980, when at age 31, he was 

the youngest Republican ever elected to the U.S. Senate. Reelected 

in 1986, 1992, and 1998, and serving from January 3, 1981 to 

January 3, 2005, Nickles was not a candidate for reelection in 

2004. Nickles quickly rose in the Senate Republican leadership 

and served as the Republican whip from June 1996 until December 31, 2002; chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, 101st Congress; and the Republican Policy Committee 

from the 102nd to 104th Congresses. Upon retirement from the 

Senate, Nickles founded The Nickles Group, a consulting firm. 

132 

JUDD GREGG 

of New Hampshire 

Chairman 


28749.047
133 

JUDD GREGG 

Judd Alan Gregg, a Republican from New Hampshire, served 

as chairman for the 109th Congress. He joined the Committee in 

1993. 

Born in Nashua, NH, on February 14, 1947, Gregg attended 

public schools and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, NH, 

in 1965, Columbia University in 1969, and earned a J.D. degree 

in 1972 and an LL.M. in 1975 respectively from Boston University. Admitted to the New Hampshire bar in 1972, Gregg commenced practice in Nashua and served as a member of the Governor’s executive council from 1978 to 1980. 

In 1980, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives 

and served four terms from 1981 to 1989. Gregg was elected Governor of New Hampshire for two terms serving from 1989 

through 1992 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Reelected 

in 1998 and in 2004 for the term ending January 3, 2011, Gregg 

served as chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor 

and Pensions for the 108th Congress and chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security for the 109th Congress. 

135 

Committee Members Who Have Served in Other 

Elective or Appointive Positions 

(Democrats in italic; Republicans in roman) 

VICE PRESIDENTS 

Walter F. Mondale, Minnesota ..... Vice President to Jimmy 

Carter.

1977–1981 

Dan Quayle, Indiana ................... Vice President to George 

H.W. Bush.

1989–1993 

GOVERNORS 

Lamar Alexander ......................... Governor of Tennessee ......... 1979–1987 

Wendell R. Anderson ..................... Governor of Minnesota ........ 1971–1976 

Henry Bellmon ........................... Governor of Oklahoma ........ 1987–1991 

Christopher S. Bond .................... Governor of Missouri ........... 1973–1977 and 

1980–1985 

John H. Chafee ........................... Governor of Rhode Island ... 1963–1969 

Lawton Chiles ............................... Governor of Florida ............. 1990–1998 

Jon Corzine ................................... Governor of New Jersey ...... 2006– 

J. James Exon ............................... Governor of Nebraska .......... 1971–1979 

Paul J. Fannin ............................. Governor of Arizona ............ 1958–1964 

Judd Gregg ................................. Governor of New Hampshire 1989–1992 

Ernest F. Hollings ......................... Governor of South Carolina 1959–1963 

Edmund S. Muskie ........................ Governor of Maine ............... 1955–1959 

Charles S. Robb ............................ Governor of Virginia ........... 1982–1986 

Terry Sanford ............................... Governor of North Carolina 1961–1965 

CABINET SECRETARIES 

Lamar Alexander, Tennessee ....... Secretary of Education ......... 1991–1993 

Spencer Abraham, Michigan ....... Secretary of Energy .............. 2001–2004 

Edmund S. Muskie, Maine ............ Secretary of State ................. 1980–1981 

AMBASSADORS 

John C. Danforth, Missouri ........ Ambassador to United Nations.2004–2005 

Peter H. Dominick, Colorado ..... Ambassador Extraordinary 

and Plenipotentiary to 

Switzerland.

1975 

Wyche Fowler, Jr., Georgia ........... Ambassador to Saudi Arabia 1996–2001 

Walter F. Mondale, Minnesota ..... Ambassador Extraordinary 

and Plenipotentiary to 

Japan.

1993–1996 

136 

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 

New York ...............................

Ambassador to India ............

United States Permanent 

Representative to the 

United Nations.

1973–1975 

1975–1976 

Jim Sasser, Tennessee ................... Ambassador to the People’s 

Republic of China.

1995–2001 

FIRST LADIES 

Hillary Rodham Clinton, 

New York ...............................

First Lady of the United 

States.

1993–2001 

Hillary Rodham Clinton, 

New York ...............................

First Lady of Arkansas ......... 1979–1981 and 

1983–1993 

SENATE MAJORITY AND MINORITY LEADERS 

Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia ..... Majority Leader ...................

Minority Leader ...................

1977–1980 and 

1987–1988 

1981–1986 

Robert J. Dole, Kansas ............... Majority Leader ................... 1985–1987 and 

1995–1996 

Minority Leader ................... 1987–1995 

William H. Frist, Tennessee ....... Majority Leader ................... 2003–2006 

Trent Lott, Mississippi ................ Majority Leader ................... 1996–January 3, 

2001 and 

January 20, 

2001– 

June 6, 2001 

Minority Leader ................... January 3, 2001– 

January 20, 2001 

and 

June 6, 2001– 

January 6, 2003 

George J. Mitchell, Maine ............. Majority Leader ................... 1989–1995 

137 

Membership of the Committee by Congress 

Created as a standing committee on July 12, 1974. 

(Democrats in italic; Republicans in roman) 

NINETY-THIRD CONGRESS 

Second Session—January 21, 1974–December 20, 1974 

Chairman, Edmund S. Muskie 

Majority 

S. Res. 367 (July 25, 1974) 

Warren G. Magnuson 

Frank E. Moss 

Walter F. Mondale 

Ernest F. Hollings 

Alan Cranston 

Lawton Chiles 

James G. Abourezk 

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. 

Minority 

S. Res. 378 (August 7, 1974) 

Peter H. Dominick (Ranking 

Member) 

Milton R. Young 

Roman L. Hruska 

Jacob K. Javits 

Paul J. Fannin 

Robert J. Dole 

NINETY-FOURTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 14, 1975–December 19, 1975 

Second Session—January 19, 1976–October 1, 1976 

Chairman, Edmund S. Muskie 

Majority 

S. Res. 18 (January 17, 1975) 

Warren G. Magnuson 

Frank E. Moss 

Walter F. Mondale 1

Ernest F. Hollings 

Alan Cranston 

Lawton Chiles 

James G. Abourezk 

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. 

Sam Nunn 

Minority 

S. Res. 24 (January 23, 1975) 

Henry Bellmon (Ranking Member) 

Robert J. Dole 

J. Glenn Beall, Jr. 

JAMES L. BUCKLEY (Conservative 

Party) 

James A. McClure 

Pete V. Domenici 

1 Senator Mondale resigned on December 30, 1976, to become Vice President. 

138 

NINETY-FIFTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 4, 1977–December 15, 1977 

Second Session—January 19, 1978–October 15, 1978 

Chairman, Edmund S. Muskie 

Majority 

S. Res. 20 (January 10, 1977) 

Warren G. Magnuson 

Ernest F. Hollings 

Alan Cranston 

Lawton Chiles 

James G. Abourezk 

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. 

Sam Nunn 1

Wendell R. Anderson 2

Daniel Patrick Moynihan 1, 2

J. Bennett Johnston 1

Jim Sasser 1

Minority 

S. Res. 21 (January 10, 1977) 

Henry Bellmon (Ranking Member) 

Robert J. Dole 

James A. McClure 

Pete V. Domenici 

John H. Chafee 3

Richard G. Lugar 3

Samuel I. Hayakawa 3

H. John Heinz III 3

1 Pursuant to S. Res. 84, adopted by the Senate on February 11, 1977, Senators Johnston and 

Sasser joined the Committee, and Senators Nunn and Moynihan left the Committee. 2 Pursuant to S. Res. 29, adopted by the Senate on January 11, 1977, Senators Anderson and 

Moynihan were added as temporary Members to the Committee. 3 Pursuant to S. Res. 90, adopted by the Senate on February 22, 1977, Senators Hayakawa and 

Heinz joined the Committee, and Senators Chafee and Lugar left the Committee. 

NINETY-SIXTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 15, 1979–January 3, 1980 

Second Session—January 3, 1980–December 16, 1980 

Chairman, Edmund S. Muskie 1

Majority 

S. Res. 22 (January 23, 1979) 

Warren G. Magnuson 

Ernest F. Hollings 1

Lawton Chiles 

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. 

J. Bennett Johnston 

Jim Sasser 

Gary W. Hart 

Howard M. Metzenbaum 

Donald W. Riegle, Jr. 

Daniel Patrick Moynihan 

J. James Exon 

George J. Mitchell 2

Minority 

S. Res. 23 (January 23, 1979) 

Henry Bellmon (Ranking Member) 

Pete V. Domenici 

Bob Packwood 

William L. Armstrong 

Nancy Landon Kassebaum 

Rudy Boschwitz 

Orrin G. Hatch 

Larry Pressler 

1 Senator Muskie resigned on May 7, 1980, to become Secretary of State. Pursuant to S. Res. 

429, adopted by the Senate on May 13, 1980, Senator Hollings became chair. 2 Pursuant to S. Res. 439, adopted by the Senate on May 19, 1980, George J. Mitchell joined 

the Committee. 

139 

NINETY-SEVENTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 5, 1981–December 16, 1981 

Second Session—January 25, 1982–December 23, 1982 

Chairman, Pete V. Domenici 

Majority 

S. Res. 14 (January 5, 1981) 

William L. Armstrong 

Nancy Landon Kassebaum 

Rudy Boschwitz 

Orrin G. Hatch 

John G. Tower 

Mark Andrews 

Steven D. Symms 

Charles E. Grassley 

Robert W. Kasten, Jr. 

Dan Quayle 

Slade Gorton 

Minority 

S. Res. 15 (January 5, 1981) 

Ernest F. Hollings (Ranking Member) 

Lawton Chiles 

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. 

J. Bennett Johnston 

Jim Sasser 

Gary W. Hart 

Howard M. Metzenbaum 

Donald W. Riegle, Jr. 

Daniel Patrick Moynihan 

J. James Exon 

NINETY-EIGHTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 3, 1983–November 18, 1983 

Second Session—January 23, 1984–October 12, 1984 

Chairman, Pete V. Domenici 

Majority 

S. Res. 8 (January 3, 1983) 

William L. Armstrong 

Nancy Landon Kassebaum 

Rudy Boschwitz 

Orrin G. Hatch 

John G. Tower 

Mark Andrews 

Steven D. Symms 

Charles E. Grassley 

Robert W. Kasten, Jr. 

Dan Quayle 

Slade Gorton 

Minority 

S. Res. 9 (January 3, 1983) 

Lawton Chiles (Ranking Member) 

Ernest F. Hollings 

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. 

J. Bennett Johnston 

Jim Sasser 

Gary W. Hart 

Howard M. Metzenbaum 

Donald W. Riegle, Jr. 

Daniel Patrick Moynihan 

J. James Exon 

140 

NINETY-NINTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 3, 1985–December 20, 1985 

Second Session—January 21, 1986–October 18, 1986 

Chairman, Pete V. Domenici 

Majority 

S. Res. 75 (February 21, 1985) 

William L. Armstrong 

Nancy Landon Kassebaum 

Rudy Boschwitz 

Orrin G. Hatch 

Mark Andrews 

Steven D. Symms 

Charles E. Grassley 

Robert W. Kasten, Jr. 

Dan Quayle 

Slade Gorton 

John C. Danforth 

Minority 

S. Res. 87 (March 5, 1985) 

Lawton Chiles (Ranking Member) 

Ernest F. Hollings 

J. Bennett Johnston 

Jim Sasser 

Gary W. Hart 

Howard M. Metzenbaum 

Donald W. Riegle, Jr. 

Daniel Patrick Moynihan 

J. James Exon 

Frank R. Lautenberg 

ONE HUNDREDTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 6, 1987–December 22, 1987 

Second Session—January 25, 1988–October 22, 1988 

Chairman, Lawton Chiles 1

Majority 

S. Res. 19 (January 6, 1987) 

Ernest F. Hollings 

J. Bennett Johnston 

Jim Sasser 

Donald W. Riegle, Jr. 

J. James Exon 

Frank R. Lautenberg 

Paul Simon 

Terry Sanford 

Timothy E. Wirth 

Wyche Fowler, Jr. 

Kent Conrad 

Christopher J. Dodd 

Minority 

S. Res. 20 (January 6, 1987) 

Pete V. Domenici (Ranking Member) 

William L. Armstrong 

Nancy Landon Kassebaum 

Rudy Boschwitz 

Steven D. Symms 

Charles E. Grassley 

Robert W. Kasten, Jr. 

Dan Quayle 2

John C. Danforth 

Don Nickles 

Warren Rudman 

1 Senator Chiles was not a candidate for reelection in 1988. He was elected Governor of Florida 

in 1990. 2 Senator Quayle resigned on January 3, 1989, to become Vice President. 

141 

ONE HUNDRED FIRST CONGRESS 

First Session—January 3, 1989–November 22, 1989 

Second Session—January 23, 1990–October 28, 1990 

Chairman, Jim Sasser 

Majority 

S. Res. 46 (February 2, 1989) 

Ernest F. Hollings 

J. Bennett Johnston 

Donald W. Riegle, Jr. 

J. James Exon 

Frank R. Lautenberg 

Paul Simon 

Terry Sanford 

Timothy E. Wirth 

Wyche Fowler, Jr. 

Kent Conrad 

Christopher J. Dodd 

Charles S. Robb 

Minority 

S. Res. 47 (February 2, 1989) 

Pete V. Domenici (Ranking Member) 

William L. Armstrong 

Rudy Boschwitz 

Steven D. Symms 

Charles E. Grassley 

Robert W. Kasten, Jr. 

Don Nickles 

Warren Rudman 

Phil Gramm 

Christopher S. Bond 

ONE HUNDRED SECOND CONGRESS 

First Session—January 3, 1991–January 3, 1992 

Second Session—January 3, 1992–October 9, 1992 

Chairman, Jim Sasser 

Majority 

S. Res. 86 (March 19, 1991) 

Ernest F. Hollings 

J. Bennett Johnston 

Donald W. Riegle, Jr. 

J. James Exon 

Frank R. Lautenberg 

Paul Simon 

Terry Sanford 

Timothy E. Wirth 

Wyche Fowler, Jr. 

Kent Conrad 

Christopher J. Dodd 

Minority 

S. Res. 88 (March 19, 1991) 

Pete V. Domenici (Ranking Member) 

Steven D. Symms 

Charles E. Grassley 

Robert W. Kasten, Jr. 

Don Nickles 

Phil Gramm 

Christopher S. Bond 

Trent Lott 

Hank Brown 

142 

ONE HUNDRED THIRD CONGRESS 

First Session—January 5, 1993–November 26, 1993 

Second Session—January 25, 1994–December 1, 1994 

Chairman, Jim Sasser 

Majority 

S. Res. 19 (January 21, 1993) 

Ernest F. Hollings 

J. Bennett Johnston 

Donald W. Riegle, Jr. 

J. James Exon 

Frank R. Lautenberg 

Paul Simon 

Kent Conrad 

Christopher J. Dodd 

Paul S. Sarbanes 

Barbara Boxer 

Patty Murray 

Minority 

S. Res. 22 (January 21, 1993) 

Pete V. Domenici (Ranking Member) 

Charles E. Grassley 

Don Nickles 

Phil Gramm 

Christopher S. Bond 

Trent Lott 

Hank Brown 

Slade Gorton 

Judd Gregg 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 4, 1995–January 3, 1996 

Second Session—January 3, 1996–October 4, 1996 

Chairman, Pete V. Domenici 

Majority 

S. Res. 33 (January 6, 1995) 

Charles E. Grassley 

Don Nickles 

Phil Gramm 

Christopher S. Bond 

Trent Lott 1

Hank Brown 

Slade Gorton 

Judd Gregg 

Olympia J. Snowe 

Spencer Abraham 

William H. Frist 

Rod Grams 2

Connie Mack III 1

Minority 

S. Res. 32 (January 6, 1995) 

J. James Exon (Ranking Member) 

Ernest F. Hollings 

J. Bennett Johnston 

Frank R. Lautenberg 

Paul Simon 

Kent Conrad 

Christopher J. Dodd 

Paul S. Sarbanes 

Barbara Boxer 

Patty Murray 

Ron Wyden 2

1 Pursuant to S. Res. 267, adopted by the Senate on June 20, 1996, Senator Mack joined the 

Committee, and Senator Lott left the Committee to become majority leader. 2 Pursuant to S. Res. 236, adopted by the Senate on March 29, 1996, Senators Grams and Wyden 

joined the Committee. 

143 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 7, 1997–November 13, 1997 

Second Session—January 27, 1998–December 19, 1998 

Chairman, Pete V. Domenici 

Majority 

S. Res. 14 (January 9, 1997) 

Charles E. Grassley 

Don Nickles 

Phil Gramm 

Christopher S. Bond 

Slade Gorton 

Judd Gregg 

Olympia J. Snowe 

Spencer Abraham 

William H. Frist 

Rod Grams 

Gordon H. Smith 

Minority 

S. Res. 12 (January 9, 1997) 

Frank R. Lautenberg (Ranking 

Member) 

Ernest F. Hollings 

Kent Conrad 

Paul S. Sarbanes 

Barbara Boxer 

Patty Murray 

Ron Wyden 

Russell D. Feingold 

Tim Johnson 

Richard J. Durbin 

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 6, 1999–November 22, 1999 

Second Session—January 24, 2000–December 15, 2000 

Chairman, Pete V. Domenici 

Majority 

S. Res. 18 (January 14, 1999) 

Charles E. Grassley 

Don Nickles 

Phil Gramm 

Christopher S. Bond 

Slade Gorton 

Judd Gregg 

Olympia J. Snowe 

Spencer Abraham 

William H. Frist 

Rod Grams 

Gordon H. Smith 

Minority 

S. Res. 15 (January 7, 1999) 

Frank R. Lautenberg (Ranking 

Member) 

Ernest F. Hollings 

Kent Conrad 

Paul S. Sarbanes 

Barbara Boxer 

Patty Murray 

Ron Wyden 

Russell D. Feingold 

Tim Johnson 

Richard J. Durbin 

144 

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 3, 2001–December 20, 2001 

Second Session—January 23, 2002–November 22, 2002 

From the convening of the 107th Congress on January 3, 2001, until the inauguration of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney 17 days later on January 20, the 

Senate was evenly divided between the two parties (with 50 Democratic and 50 Republican Senators).1 Democrats held the majority, however, due to the deciding vote of outgoing Democratic 

Vice President Albert Gore. During this period, Senator Kent Conrad served as chairman 2 and Senator Pete V. Domenici served as ranking member of the Budget Committee. Beginning on January 

20, the evenly-divided Senate came under the control of the Republican Party due to the deciding 

vote of Vice President Cheney. Accordingly, the Committee leadership positions of Senators Conrad 

and Domenici were reversed, effective with Committee assignments announced on January 25. On 

May 24, 2001, Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont switched his party affiliation from Republican 

to Independent and began to caucus with the Democrats, effective June 6, 2001. At that point, 

the 50 Democratic Senators, plus Senator Jeffords, held a 51 to 49 advantage over the Republicans, 

and the positions of Senators Conrad and Domenici were reversed again, effective with Committee 

assignments announced on July 10. Senator Conrad served as chairman and Senator Domenici served 

as ranking member for the remainder of the 107th Congress. 

January 25, 2001–July 10, 2001 

Chairman, Pete V. Domenici 

Majority 

Congressional Record, January 25, 2001, 

p. S558–559 

Charles E. Grassley 

Don Nickles 

Phil Gramm 

Christopher S. Bond 

Judd Gregg 

Olympia J. Snowe 

William H. Frist 

Gordon H. Smith 

Wayne Allard 

Chuck Hagel 

Minority 

Congressional Record, January 25, 2001, 

p. S559 

Kent Conrad (Ranking Member) 

Ernest F. Hollings 

Paul S. Sarbanes 

Patty Murray 

Ron Wyden 

Russell D. Feingold 

Tim Johnson 

Robert C. Byrd 

Bill Nelson 

Debbie Stabenow 

Hillary Rodham Clinton 

July 10, 2001–November 22, 2002 

Chairman, Kent Conrad 

Majority 

Congressional Record, July 10, 2001, p. 

S7417–7418 

Ernest F. Hollings 

Paul S. Sarbanes 

Patty Murray 

Ron Wyden 

Russell D. Feingold 

Tim Johnson 

Robert C. Byrd 

Bill Nelson 

Debbie Stabenow 

Hillary Rodham Clinton 

Jon Corzine 

Minority 

Congressional Record, July 10, 2001, p. 

S7418 

Pete V. Domenici (Ranking Member) 

Charles E. Grassley 

Don Nickles 

Phil Gramm 

Christopher S. Bond 

Judd Gregg 

Olympia J. Snowe 

William H. Frist 3

Gordon H. Smith 

Wayne Allard 

Chuck Hagel 

1 S. Res. 8, on Senate procedures, as adopted by the Senate on January 5, 2001. 

2 S. Res. 7, designating chairmen of committees, as adopted by the Senate on January 3, 2001. 

3 Senator Frist was elected majority leader on December 23, 2002, and began service as leader 

on January 7, 2003. 

145 

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 7, 2003–December 9, 2003 

Second Session—January 20, 2004–December 8, 2004 

Chairman, Don Nickles 

Majority 

S. Res. 18 (January 15, 2003) 

Pete V. Domenici 

Charles E. Grassley 

Judd Gregg 

Wayne Allard 

Conrad Burns 

Michael B. Enzi 

Jeff Sessions 

Jim Bunning 

Michael D. Crapo 

John Ensign 

John Cornyn 

Minority 

S. Res. 20 (January 15, 2003) 

Kent Conrad (Ranking Member) 

Ernest F. Hollings 

Paul S. Sarbanes 

Patty Murray 

Ron Wyden 

Russell D. Feingold 

Tim Johnson 

Robert C. Byrd 

Bill Nelson 

Debbie Stabenow 

Jon Corzine 

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS 

First Session—January 4, 2005–December 8, 2005 

Second Session—January 4, 2006–December 9, 2006 

Chairman, Judd Gregg 

Majority 

S. Res. 5 (January 6, 2005) 

Pete V. Domenici 

Charles E. Grassley 

Wayne Allard 

Michael B. Enzi 

Jeff Sessions 

Jim Bunning 

Michael D. Crapo 

John Ensign 

John Cornyn 

Lamar Alexander 

Lindsey O. Graham 

Minority 

S. Res. 6 (January 6, 2005) 

Kent Conrad (Ranking Member) 

Paul S. Sarbanes 

Patty Murray 

Ron Wyden 

Russell D. Feingold 

Tim Johnson 

Robert C. Byrd 

Bill Nelson 

Debbie Stabenow 

Jon Corzine 1

Robert Menendez 2

1 Senator Corzine resigned from the Senate on January 17, 2006, to become Governor of New 

Jersey. 2 Pursuant to S. Res. 348, adopted by the Senate on January 18, 2006, Robert Menendez replaced 

Jon Corzine. 

147 

Membership of the Committee by State 

(Democrats in italic; Republicans in roman) 

Name Service on Committee 

ALABAMA 

Jeff Sessions ............................................. January 15, 2003–

ALASKA 

(None) 

ARIZONA 

Paul J. Fannin ......................................... August 7, 1974–January 23, 1975 

ARKANSAS 

(None) 

CALIFORNIA 

Barbara Boxer .......................................... January 21, 1993–January 25, 2001 

Alan Cranston .......................................... July 25, 1974–January 23, 1979 

Samuel I. Hayakawa ................................ February 22, 1977–January 23, 

1979 

COLORADO 

Wayne Allard .......................................... January 25, 2001–

William L. Armstrong ............................ January 23, 1979–January 3, 1991 

Hank Brown ............................................ March 19, 1991–January 7, 1997 

Peter H. Dominick ................................. August 7, 1974–January 14, 1975 

Gary W. Hart .......................................... January 23, 1979–January 6, 1987 

Timothy E. Wirth ..................................... January 6, 1987–January 5, 1993 

148 

Name Service on Committee 

CONNECTICUT 

Christopher J. Dodd ................................... January 6, 1987–January 9, 1997 

DELAWARE 

Joseph R. Biden, Jr .................................... July 25, 1974–March 5, 1985 

FLORIDA 

Lawton Chiles ........................................... July 25, 1974–January 3, 1989 

Connie Mack III ...................................... June 20, 1996–January 9, 1997 

Bill Nelson ............................................... January 25, 2001–

GEORGIA 

Wyche Fowler, Jr ....................................... January 6, 1987–January 5, 1993 

Sam Nunn ................................................ January 17, 1975–February 11, 

1977 

HAWAII 

(None) 

IDAHO 

Michael D. Crapo .................................... January 15, 2003–

James A. McClure ................................... January 23, 1975–January 23, 1979 

Steven D. Symms .................................... January 5, 1981–January 5, 1993 

ILLINOIS 

Richard J. Durbin ..................................... January 9, 1997–January 25, 2001 

Paul Simon ............................................... January 6, 1987–January 7, 1997 

INDIANA 

Richard G. Lugar .................................... January 10, 1977–February 22, 

1977 

Dan Quayle ............................................. January 5, 1981–January 3, 1989 

149 

Name Service on Committee 

IOWA 

Charles E. Grassley .................................. January 5, 1981–

KANSAS 

Robert J. Dole ......................................... August 7, 1974–January 23, 1979 

Nancy Landon Kassebaum ...................... January 23, 1979–February 2, 1989 

KENTUCKY 

Jim Bunning ........................................... January 15, 2003–

LOUISIANA 

J. Bennett Johnston .................................... February 11, 1977–January 7, 1997 

MAINE 

George J. Mitchell ..................................... May 19, 1980–January 5, 1981 

Edmund S. Muskie .................................... July 25, 1974–May 7, 1980 

Olympia J. Snowe ................................... January 6, 1995–January 15, 2003 

MARYLAND 

J. Glenn Beall, Jr .................................... January 23, 1975–January 4, 1977 

Paul S. Sarbanes ....................................... January 21, 1993–January 4, 2007 

MASSACHUSETTS 

(None) 

MICHIGAN 

Spencer Abraham .................................... January 6, 1995–January 3, 2001 

Donald W. Riegle, Jr ................................ January 23, 1979–January 4, 1995 

Debbie Stabenow ........................................ January 25, 2001–

MINNESOTA 

Wendell R. Anderson ................................. January 11, 1977–December 29, 

1978 

Rudy Boschwitz ...................................... January 23, 1979–January 3, 1991 

150 

Name Service on Committee 

Rod Grams .............................................. March 29, 1996–January 3, 2001 

Walter F. Mondale .................................... July 25, 1974–December 30, 1976 

MISSISSIPPI 

Trent Lott ............................................... March 19, 1991–June 20, 1996 

MISSOURI 

Christopher S. Bond ................................ February 2, 1989–January 15, 2003 

John C. Danforth .................................... February 21, 1985–February 2, 1989 

MONTANA 

Conrad Burns .......................................... January 15, 2003–January 6, 2005 

NEBRASKA 

J. James Exon ........................................... January 23, 1979–January 7, 1997 

Chuck Hagel ........................................... January 25, 2001–January 15, 2003 

Roman L. Hruska .................................... August 7, 1974–January 23, 1975 

NEVADA 

John Ensign ............................................ January 15, 2003–

NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Judd Gregg ............................................. January 21, 1993–

Warren Rudman ..................................... January 6, 1987–March 19, 1991 

NEW JERSEY 

Jon Corzine ............................................... July 10, 2001–January 17, 2006 

Frank R. Lautenberg ................................. March 5, 1985–January 3, 2001 

Robert Menendez ........................................ January 18, 2006–

NEW MEXICO 

Pete V. Domenici .................................... January 23, 1975–

151 

Name Service on Committee 

NEW YORK 

JAMES L. BUCKLEY (Conservative Party) January 23, 1975–January 4, 1977 

Hillary Rodham Clinton ............................ January 25, 2001–January 15, 2003 

Jacob K. Javits ........................................ August 7, 1974–January 23, 1975 

Daniel Patrick Moynihan .......................... January 11, 1977–February 11, 

1977 and 

January 23, 1979–January 6, 1987 

NORTH CAROLINA 

Terry Sanford ............................................ January 6, 1987–January 5, 1993 

NORTH DAKOTA 

Mark Andrews ......................................... January 5, 1981–January 6, 1987 

Kent Conrad .............................................. January 6, 1987–

Milton R. Young .................................... August 7, 1974–January 23, 1975 

OHIO 

Howard M. Metzenbaum ............................ January 23, 1979–January 6, 1987 

OKLAHOMA 

Henry Bellmon ........................................ January 23, 1975–January 5, 1981 

Don Nickles ............................................ January 6, 1987–January 4, 2005 

OREGON 

Bob Packwood ......................................... January 23, 1979–January 5, 1981 

Gordon H. Smith .................................... January 9, 1997–January 15, 2003 

Ron Wyden ............................................... March 29, 1996–

PENNSYLVANIA 

H. John Heinz III ................................... February 22, 1977–January 23, 

1979 

RHODE ISLAND 

John H. Chafee ....................................... January 10, 1977–February 22, 

1977 

152 

Name Service on Committee 

SOUTH CAROLINA 

Lindsey O. Graham ................................. January 6, 2005–

Ernest F. Hollings ..................................... July 25, 1974–January 4, 2005 

SOUTH DAKOTA 

James G. Abourezk .................................... July 25, 1974–January 15, 1979 

Tim Johnson .............................................. January 9, 1997–

Larry Pressler ........................................... January 23, 1979–January 5, 1981 

TENNESSEE 

Lamar Alexander ..................................... January 6, 2005–January 4, 2007 

William H. Frist ..................................... January 6, 1995–January 7, 2003 

Jim Sasser ................................................. February 11, 1977–January 4, 1995 

TEXAS 

John Cornyn ............................................ January 15, 2003–

Phil Gramm ............................................ February 2, 1989–January 7, 2003 

John G. Tower ........................................ January 5, 1981–January 3, 1985 

UTAH 

Orrin G. Hatch ....................................... January 23, 1979–January 6, 1987 

Frank E. Moss .......................................... July 25, 1974–January 4, 1977 

VERMONT 

(None) 

VIRGINIA 

Charles S. Robb ......................................... February 2, 1989–March 19, 1991 

WASHINGTON 

Slade Gorton ........................................... January 5, 1981–January 6, 1987 

and 

January 21, 1993–January 3, 2001 

Warren G. Magnuson ................................ July 25, 1974–January 5, 1981 

Patty Murray ............................................ January 21, 1993–

153 

Name Service on Committee 

WEST VIRGINIA 

Robert C. Byrd .......................................... January 25, 2001–

WISCONSIN 

Robert W. Kasten, Jr .............................. January 5, 1981–January 5, 1993 

Russell D. Feingold ................................... January 9, 1997–

WYOMING 

Michael B. Enzi ....................................... January 15, 2003–

155 

Alphabetical Listing of Members of the 

Committee 

(Democrats in italic; Republicans in roman) 

Name State Service on Committee 

A 

Abourezk, James G .............. South Dakota ...... July 25, 1974–January 15, 1979 

Abraham, Spencer ............. Michigan ............ January 6, 1995–January 3, 2001 

Alexander, Lamar .............. Tennessee ............ January 6, 2005–January 4, 2007 

Allard, Wayne ................... Colorado ............. January 25, 2001–

Anderson, Wendell R ........... Minnesota ........... January 11, 1977–December 29, 

1978 

Andrews, Mark .................. North Dakota ..... January 5, 1981–January 6, 1987 

Armstrong, William L ...... Colorado ............. January 23, 1979–January 3, 1991 

B 

Beall, J. Glenn, Jr ............. Maryland ............ January 23, 1975–January 4, 1977 

Bellmon, Henry ................ Oklahoma ........... January 23, 1975–January 5, 1981 

Biden, Joseph R., Jr ............. Delaware ............. July 25, 1974–March 5, 1985 

Bond, Christopher S .......... Missouri .............. February 2, 1989–January 15, 2003 

Boschwitz, Rudy ............... Minnesota ........... January 23, 1979–January 3, 1991 

Boxer, Barbara ................... California ............ January 21, 1993–January 25, 2001 

Brown, Hank .................... Colorado ............. March 19, 1991–January 7, 1997 

BUCKLEY, JAMES L. (Conservative Party).

New York ........... January 23, 1975–January 4, 1977 

Bunning, Jim .................... Kentucky ............ January 15, 2003–

Burns, Conrad ................... Montana ............. January 15, 2003–January 6, 2005 

Byrd, Robert C .................... West Virginia ..... January 25, 2001–

C 

Chafee, John H ................. Rhode Island ...... January 10, 1977–February 22, 1977 

Chiles, Lawton .................... Florida ................ July 25, 1974–January 3, 1989 

Clinton, Hillary Rodham ..... New York ........... January 25, 2001–January 15, 2003 

Conrad, Kent ...................... North Dakota ..... January 6, 1987–

Cornyn, John ..................... Texas .................. January 15, 2003–

Corzine, Jon ........................ New Jersey ......... July 10, 2001–January 17, 2006 

Cranston, Alan ................... California ............ July 25, 1974–January 23, 1979 

Crapo, Michael D .............. Idaho .................. January 15, 2003–

D 

Danforth, John C .............. Missouri .............. February 21, 1985–February 2, 1989 

Dodd, Christopher J ............. Connecticut ........ January 6, 1987–January 9, 1997 

156 

Name State Service on Committee 

Dole, Robert J .................. Kansas ................ August 7, 1974–January 23, 1979 

Domenici, Pete V .............. New Mexico ....... January 23, 1975–

Dominick, Peter H ........... Colorado ............. August 7, 1974–January 14, 1975 

Durbin, Richard J ............... Illinois ................ January 9, 1997–January 25, 2001 

E 

Ensign, John ..................... Nevada ............... January 15, 2003–

Enzi, Michael B ................ Wyoming ........... January 15, 2003–

Exon, J. James .................... Nebraska ............. January 23, 1979–January 7, 1997 

F 

Fannin, Paul J ................... Arizona ............... August 7, 1974–January 23, 1975 

Feingold, Russell D ............. Wisconsin ........... January 9, 1997–

Fowler, Wyche, Jr ............... Georgia ............... January 6, 1987–January 5, 1993 

Frist, William H. .............. Tennessee ............ January 6, 1995–January 7, 2003 

G 

Gorton, Slade .................... Washington ........ January 5, 1981–January 6, 1987 and 

January 21, 1993–January 3, 2001 

Graham, Lindsey O ........... South Carolina .... January 6, 2005–

Gramm, Phil ..................... Texas .................. February 2, 1989–January 7, 2003 

Grams, Rod ....................... Minnesota ........... March 29, 1996–January 3, 2001 

Grassley, Charles E ............ Iowa .................... January 5, 1981–

Gregg, Judd ...................... New Hampshire January 21, 1993–

H 

Hagel, Chuck .................... Nebraska ............. January 25, 2001–January 15, 2003 

Hart, Gary W .................... Colorado ............. January 23, 1979–January 6, 1987 

Hatch, Orrin G ................. Utah ................... January 23, 1979–January 6, 1987 

Hayakawa, Samuel I .......... California ............ February 22, 1977–January 23, 1979 

Heinz, H. John, III ........... Pennsylvania ....... February 22, 1977–January 23, 1979 

Hollings, Ernest F ............... South Carolina .... July 25, 1974–January 4, 2005 

Hruska, Roman L .............. Nebraska ............. August 7, 1974–January 23, 1975 

J 

Javits, Jacob K .................. New York ........... August 7, 1974–January 23, 1975 

Johnson, Tim ....................... South Dakota ...... January 9, 1997–

Johnston, J. Bennett ............. Louisiana ............. February 11, 1977–January 7, 1997 

K 

Kassebaum, Nancy Landon Kansas ................ January 23, 1979–February 2, 1989 

Kasten, Robert W., Jr ...... Wisconsin ........... January 5, 1981–January 5, 1993 

157 

Name State Service on Committee 

L 

Lautenberg, Frank R ........... New Jersey ......... March 5, 1985–January 3, 2001 

Lott, Trent ........................ Mississippi .......... March 19, 1991–June 20, 1996 

Lugar, Richard G .............. Indiana ............... January 10, 1977–February 22, 1977 

M 

Mack, Connie, III .............. Florida ................ June 20, 1996–January 9, 1997 

Magnuson, Warren G .......... Washington ........ July 25, 1974–January 5, 1981 

McClure, James A ............. Idaho .................. January 23, 1975–January 23, 1979 

Menendez, Robert ................. New Jersey ......... January 18, 2006–

Metzenbaum, Howard M ...... Ohio ................... January 23, 1979–January 6, 1987 

Mitchell, George J ............... Maine ................. May 19, 1980–January 5, 1981 

Mondale, Walter F .............. Minnesota ........... July 25, 1974–December 30, 1976 

Moss, Frank E .................... Utah ................... July 25, 1974–January 4, 1977 

Moynihan, Daniel Patrick ... New York ........... January 11, 1977–February 11, 1977 

and 

January 23, 1979–January 6, 1987 

Murray, Patty .................... Washington ........ January 21, 1993–

Muskie, Edmund S .............. Maine ................. July 25, 1974–May 7, 1980 

N 

Nelson, Bill ........................ Florida ................ January 25, 2001–

Nickles, Don ..................... Oklahoma ........... January 6, 1987–January 4, 2005 

Nunn, Sam ......................... Georgia ............... January 17, 1975–February 11, 1977 

P 

Packwood, Bob .................. Oregon ............... January 23, 1979–January 5, 1981 

Pressler, Larry .................... South Dakota ...... January 23, 1979–January 5, 1981 

Q 

Quayle, Dan ...................... Indiana ............... January 5, 1981–January 3, 1989 

R 

Riegle, Donald W., Jr ......... Michigan ............ January 23, 1979–January 4, 1995 

Robb, Charles S ................... Virginia .............. February 2, 1989–March 19, 1991 

Rudman, Warren .............. New Hampshire January 6, 1987–March 19, 1991 

S 

Sanford, Terry ..................... North Carolina ... January 6, 1987–January 5, 1993 

Sarbanes, Paul S ................. Maryland ............ January 21, 1993–January 4, 2007 

Sasser, Jim .......................... Tennessee ............ February 11, 1977–January 4, 1995 

Sessions, Jeff ...................... Alabama ............. January 15, 2003–

Simon, Paul ........................ Illinois ................ January 6, 1987–January 7, 1997 

Smith, Gordon H .............. Oregon ............... January 9, 1997–January 15, 2003 

Snowe, Olympia J ............. Maine ................. January 6, 1995–January 15, 2003 

158 

Name State Service on Committee 

Stabenow, Debbie ................. Michigan ............ January 25, 2001–

Symms, Steven D .............. Idaho .................. January 5, 1981–January 5, 1993 

T 

Tower, John G .................. Texas .................. January 5, 1981–January 3, 1985 

W 

Wirth, Timothy E ............... Colorado ............. January 6, 1987–January 5, 1993 

Wyden, Ron ........................ Oregon ............... March 29, 1996–

Y 

Young, Milton R .............. North Dakota ..... August 7, 1974–January 23, 1975 

159 

Majority Staff Directors to the Committee 

Douglas J. Bennet Jr .................................................... 1974–1976 1

John T. McEvoy ........................................................... 1977–1980 

Stephen E. Bell ............................................................ 1981–1986 

G. William Hoagland .................................................. 1986 

Richard N. Brandon ..................................................... 1987–1988 

John L. Hilley .............................................................. 1989–1990 

Larry Stein .................................................................... 1991–1994 

G. William Hoagland .................................................. 1995–2000 

Mary Ann Naylor ......................................................... 2001–2002 2

Hazen Marshall ............................................................ 2003–2004 

Scott B. Gudes ............................................................. 2005–2006 

1The Committee was established on July 12, 1974. 

2 In the 107th Congress, party control of the Senate changed several times, resulting in changes 

in leadership of the Committee (as discussed more fully in footnote 2 on page 109); following 

about 6 months with Senator Pete Domenici serving as Committee chairman, Senator Kent Conrad 

served as chairman for the remainder of the Congress. 

160 

Minority Staff Directors to the Committee 

Robert S. Boyd ............................................................. 1975–1980 

Lizabeth Tankersley ...................................................... 1981–1982 

Richard N. Brandon ..................................................... 1983–1986 

G. William Hoagland .................................................. 1987–1994 

William G. Dauster ..................................................... 1995–1997 

Bruce King .................................................................. 1997–2000 

G. William Hoagland .................................................. 2001–2002 1

Mary Ann Naylor ......................................................... 2003–2006 

1 In the 107th Congress, party control of the Senate changed several times, resulting in changes 

in leadership of the Committee (as discussed more fully in footnote 2 on page 109); following 

about 6 months with Senator Pete Domenici serving as Committee chairman, Senator Kent Conrad 

served as chairman for the remainder of the Congress. 

161 

Majority Counsels to the Committee 

John T. McEvoy ........................................................... 1974–1976 1

Karen H. Williams ...................................................... 1977–1979 

Lizabeth Tankersley ...................................................... 1980 

Robert Fulton .............................................................. 1981–1982 

Gail Millar ................................................................... 1983 

Nell Payne ................................................................... 1984–1986 

William G. Dauster ..................................................... 1987–1994 

Jennifer Smith .............................................................. 1995 

Beth Smerko Felder ...................................................... 1996–2000 

Lisa Konwinski ............................................................ 2001–2002 2

Beth Smerko Felder ...................................................... 2003–2004 

Gail Millar ................................................................... 2005–2006 

1The Committee was established on July 12, 1974. 

2 In the 107th Congress, party control of the Senate changed several times, resulting in changes 

in leadership of the Committee (as discussed more fully in footnote 2 on page 109); following 

about 6 months with Senator Pete Domenici serving as Committee chairman, Senator Kent Conrad 

served as chairman for the remainder of the Congress. 

162 

Minority Counsels to the Committee 

Robert Z. Bohan .......................................................... 1974 1

Francis A. Hennigan .................................................... 1975–1976 

Robert Fulton .............................................................. 1980 

Lizabeth Tankersley ...................................................... 1981–1982 

William G. Dauster ..................................................... 1983–1986 

Nell Payne ................................................................... 1987 

William G. Dauster ..................................................... 1995–1997 

Lisa Konwinski ............................................................ 1999–2000 

Beth Smerko Felder ...................................................... 2001–2002 2

Lisa Konwinski ............................................................ 2003–2006 

1The Committee was established on July 12, 1974. 

2 In the 107th Congress, party control of the Senate changed several times, resulting in changes 

in leadership of the Committee (as discussed more fully in footnote 2 on page 109); following 

about 6 months with Senator Pete Domenici serving as Committee chairman, Senator Kent Conrad 

served as chairman for the remainder of the Congress. 

163 

Chief Clerks to the Committee 

Maria P. Durelli ........................................................... 1974–1975 1

Harry T. Martin ........................................................... 1976 

Harry T. Martin/Joan A. Leach .................................... 1977 

Joan A. Leach ............................................................... 1978–1980 

Lynne Seymour ............................................................. 1981 

Laurie E. Greene .......................................................... 1982–1983 

Deborah S. Paul ........................................................... 1984–1986 

Anne Willis Hill .......................................................... 1987–1994 

Lynne Seymour ............................................................. 1995– 

1The Committee was established on July 12, 1974. 

165 

Authorities Pertaining to the Jurisdiction and 

Duties of the Senate Committee on the Budget 

Statutory Provisions 

The key statute pertaining to the jurisdiction and duties of the 

Senate Budget Committee is the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (P.L. 93–344; July 12, 1974; 88 

Stat. 297–339), as amended. The 1974 Act has been amended 

many times over the years, and these changes have modified the 

Committee’s jurisdiction and duties in many ways. The provisions 

of the 1974 Act relating to congressional organization and procedure are codified in Title 2 (The Congress) of the United States 

Code. 

Title II of the Act established the Congressional Budget Office 

(CBO). Section 201(f) (2 U.S.C. 601(f)), which requires CBO to 

use revenue estimates prepared by the Joint Committee on Taxation, also provides that ‘‘[t]he Budget Committees of the Senate 

and House shall determine all estimates with respect to scoring 

points of order and with respect to the execution of the purposes 

of this Act.’’ 

Title III of the Act sets forth the procedures and requirements 

relating to the congressional budget process generally, including 

budget resolutions and reconciliation. Various sections within the 

title require the Budget Committee to report annual budget resolutions and omnibus budget reconciliation legislation, make allocations of spending to committees, provide periodic scorekeeping reports on legislative action, provide estimates of the budget impact 

of legislation for purposes of determining points of order, submit 

for the record lists of possibly extraneous provisions in reconciliation legislation, and make periodic adjustments in various budget 

levels for specified purposes. 

Title IV of the Act sets forth additional provisions dealing with 

the congressional budget process, including procedures to curb the 

use of unfunded Federal mandates. Section 425(e) (2 U.S.C. 658d) 

provides that ‘‘[f]or purposes of this section, in the Senate, the levels of Federal mandates for a fiscal year shall be determined based 

on estimates made by the Committee on the Budget.’’ 

Title VII of the Act pertains to program review and evaluation. 

Section 703 (2 U.S.C. 623), in subsections (a) and (b), directs the 

166 

House and Senate Budget Committees to ‘‘study on a continuing 

basis proposals designed to improve and facilitate methods of congressional budgetmaking’’ and to make recommendations from 

time to time. Section 703 (a) and (b) reads as follows: 

(a) The Committees on the Budget of the House of Representatives and the 

Senate shall study on a continuing basis proposals designed to improve and facilitate methods of congressional budgetmaking. The proposals to be studied 

shall include, but are not limited to, proposals for— 

(1) improving the information base required for determining the effectiveness of new programs by such means as pilot testing survey research, and 

other experimental and analytical techniques; 

(2) improving analytical and systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of 

existing programs; 

(3) establishing maximum and minimum time limitations for program authorization; and 

(4) developing techniques of human resource accounting and other means 

of providing noneconomic as well as economic evaluation measures. 

(b) The Committee on the Budget of each House shall, from time to time, 

report to its House the results of the study carried on by it under subsection 

(a) of this section, together with its recommendations. 

The second major statute that has affected the jurisdiction and 

duties of the Senate Budget Committee is the Balanced Budget 

and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (Title II of P.L. 99– 

177; December 12, 1985; 99 Stat. 1038–1101), as amended. Provisions of the Act are codified beginning with 2 U.S.C. 900. The 

Act required that the Office of Management and Budget consult 

with the Budget Committees regarding various calculations used 

in the sequestration process (Sections 251 and 252), authorized the 

Budget Committees to request a compliance report on sequestration activities from the Comptroller General (Section 254(h)), and 

directed that Budget Committee scoring with respect to certain 

new direct spending programs be used in preparation of the sequestration baseline (Section 257(b)(2)). 

In addition, the Budget Committee is required to report resolutions suspending certain budget enforcement procedures triggered 

by a ‘‘low economic growth’’ report issued by CBO (Section 

258(a)), determine the cost of amendments to a resolution dealing 

with a proposal from the President to modify the application of 

a sequester of defense spending (Section 258B), and report a resolution initiating a special reconciliation process providing an alternative to an anticipated sequestration order (Section 258C). 

Although these provisions in the 1985 Act have not been repealed, generally they are treated as inactive due to the expiration 

of the deficit targets, the discretionary spending limits, and the 

paygo requirement. 

167 

Senate Rule XXV, Paragraph (e) 

Rule XXV of the Standing Rules of the Senate establishes the 

jurisdiction and duties of the committees of the Senate. The rule, 

in paragraph 1, enumerates the standing committees, which ‘‘shall 

be appointed at the commencement of each Congress, and shall 

continue and have the power to Act until their successors are appointed, with leave to report by bill or otherwise on matters within their respective jurisdictions.’’ 

Section 102 (88 Stat. 300–302) of the Congressional Budget 

and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 amended paragraph 1 of 

Rule XXV, as well as other paragraphs of the rule, to establish 

the Senate Budget Committee, fix its membership, specify exceptions from a general requirement that committee meetings be open 

to the public, and for other purposes. Rule XXV has been revised 

over the years, including the redesignation of paragraphs and subparagraphs. 

Paragraph 1(e), which pertains to the Budget Committee, presently reads as follows: 

1(e)(1) Committee on the Budget, to which committee shall be referred all 

concurrent resolutions on the budget (as defined in section 3(a)(4) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974) and all other matters required to be referred 

to that committee under titles III and IV of that Act, and messages, petitions, 

memorials, and other matters relating thereto. 

(2) Such committee shall have the duty— 

(A) to report the matters required to be reported by it under titles III and 

IV of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974; 

(B) to make continuing studies of the effect on budget outlays of relevant 

existing and proposed legislation and to report the results of such studies to 

the Senate on a recurring basis; 

(C) to request and evaluate continuing studies of tax expenditures, to devise methods of coordinating tax expenditures, policies, and programs with 

direct budget outlays, and to report the results of such studies to the Senate 

on a recurring basis; and 

(D) to review, on a continuing basis, the conduct by the Congressional 

Budget Office of its functions and duties. 

Paragraph 3(a) of the rule fixes the number of Members authorized to serve on the Budget Committee. Originally, the membership of the Committee was set at 15 members; it currently is set 

at 22 members. 

Another rule, Senate Rule XXVI, sets forth procedures that the 

standing committees, including the Budget Committee, are required to follow. Explicit exemptions from these procedures are 

provided for the Budget Committee in several instances. 

168 

S. Res. 445 (108th Congress) 

On October 7 through October 9, 2004, during the second session of the 108th Congress, the Senate considered an internal reform measure, S. Res. 445, that in part responded to recommendations on congressional reorganization made by the President’s National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 

(also known as the ‘‘9/11 Commission’’). On October 9, the Senate 

agreed to the measure, as amended, by a vote of 79 to 6. 

The primary purpose of the resolution, as stated in Section 100, 

was: 

to improve the effectiveness of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, especially with regard to its oversight of the Intelligence Community of the 

United States Government, and to improve the Senate’s oversight of homeland 

security. 

In addition to provisions dealing with intelligence oversight reform, the measure renamed the Governmental Affairs Committee 

as the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee 

and consolidated jurisdiction over matters relating to homeland security under the committee. 

While shared jurisdiction is an unusual feature in the Senate 

committee system, the Senate Budget Committee had shared jurisdiction for many years with the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee over legislation pertaining to the congressional budget 

process under the terms of a standing order adopted by the Senate 

in 1977 (see discussion below). 

During consideration of S. Res. 445, Senate Budget Committee 

Chairman Don Nickles and Ranking Member Kent Conrad offered 

a first-degree amendment (number 4027), which assigned exclusive 

jurisdiction over congressional budget process legislation to the 

Senate Budget Committee. The elements of the congressional 

budget process identified in the amendment were patterned closely 

on the standing order of 1977. In addition, the two Senators offered a second-degree amendment thereto (number 4041), which 

provided for shared jurisdiction with the Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs Committee over nominations to the positions of Director and Deputy Director for Budget within the Office of Management and Budget. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s longstanding jurisdiction over management and accounting matters was not affected. The Senate 

adopted the second-degree amendment on October 9, by a vote of 

50 to 31, and adopted the first-degree amendment the same day 

by a voice vote. 

Section 101(d) and 101(e) of the resolution, which pertain to 

the Budget Committee, read as follows: 

169 

1 See the Congressional Record of August 4, 1977, vol. 123, p. 26709. 

(d) JURISDICTION OF BUDGET COMMITTEE.—Notwithstanding paragraph 

(b)(3) of this section, and except as otherwise provided in the Congressional 

Budget Act of 1974, the Committee on the Budget shall have exclusive jurisdiction over measures affecting the congressional budget process, which are— 

(1) the functions, duties, and powers of the Budget Committee; 

(2) the functions, duties, and powers of the Congressional Budget Office; 

(3) the process by which Congress annually establishes the appropriate levels of budget authority, outlays, revenues, deficits or surpluses, and public 

debt—including subdivisions thereof—and including the establishment of 

mandatory ceilings on spending and appropriations, a floor on revenues, timetables for congressional action on concurrent resolutions, on the reporting of 

authorization bills, and on the enactment of appropriation bills, and enforcement mechanisms for budgetary limits and timetables; 

(4) the limiting of backdoor spending devices; 

(5) the timetables for Presidential submission of appropriations and authorization requests; 

(6) the definitions of what constitutes impoundment—such as ‘‘rescissions’’ 

and ‘‘deferrals’’; 

(7) the process and determination by which impoundments must be reported to and considered by Congress; 

(8) the mechanisms to insure Executive compliance with the provisions of 

the Impoundment Control Act, title X—such as GAO review and lawsuits; 

and 

(9) the provisions which affect the content or determination of amounts 

included in or excluded from the congressional budget or the calculation of 

such amounts, including the definition of terms provided by the Budget Act. 

(e) OMB NOMINEES.—The Committee on the Budget and the Committee on 

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs shall have joint jurisdiction over 

the nominations of persons nominated by the President to fill the positions of 

Director and Deputy Director for Budget within the Office of Management and 

Budget, and if one committee votes to order reported such a nomination, the 

other must report within 30 calendar days session, or be automatically discharged. 

Standing Order on the Referral of Budget Process 

Legislation (1977) 

On August 4, 1977, the Senate by unanimous consent established a standing order regarding the joint referral of congressional 

budget process legislation to the Budget Committee and the Governmental Affairs Committee.1 In 2004 (as discussed above), the 

Senate adopted S. Res. 445, which, among other things, consolidated jurisdiction over legislation dealing with the congressional 

budget process under the Budget Committee. The adoption of S. 

Res. 445 effectively superseded the joint referral process established in the 1977 standing order. 

The 1977 standing order read as follows: 

[L]egislation affecting the congressional budget process, as described below, 

[shall] be referred jointly to the Committees on the Budget and on GovernVerDate jan 13 2004 11:54 May 09, 2007 Jkt 028749 PO 00000 Frm 00183 Fmt 5935 Sfmt 5935 C:\DOCS\BUDGET\28749.TXT CRS1 PsN: SKAYNE
170 

mental Affairs. If one committee acts to report a jointly-referred measure, the 

other must act within 30 calendar days of continuous possession, or be 

automati[c]ally discharged. 

Legislative proposals affecting the congressional budget process to which this 

order applies are: 

First. The functions, duties, and powers of the Budget Committee—as described in title I of the act [the Congressional Budget and Impoundment 

Control Act of 1974]; 

Second. The functions, duties, and powers of the Congressional Budget Office—as described in title[s] II and IV of the act[;] 

Third. The process by which Congress annually establishes the appropriate 

levels of budget authority, outlays, revenues, deficits or surpluses, and public 

debt—including subdivisions thereof. That process includes the establishment 

[of]: 

mandatory ceilings on spending and appropriations; 

a floor on revenues; 

timetables for congressional action on concurrent resolutions, on the reporting of authorization bills, and on the enactment of appropriation bills; 

and 

enforcement mechanisms for the limits and timetables, 

all as described in titles III and IV of the act[;] 

Fourth. The limiting of backdoor spending device[s]—as described in title 

IV of the act; 

Fifth. The timetables for Presidential submission of appropriations and authorization requests—as described in title VI of the act; 

Sixth. The definitions of what constitutes impoundment—such as ‘‘rescissions’’ and ‘‘deferrals,’’ as provided in the Impoundment Control Act, title 

X; 

Seventh. The process and determination by which impoundments must be 

reported to and considered by Congress—as provided in the Impoundment 

Control Act, title X; 

Eighth. The mechanisms to insure Executive compliance with the provisions of the Impoundment Control Act, title X—such as GAO review and 

lawsuits; and 

Ninth. The provisions which affect the content or determination of 

amounts included in or excluded from the congressional budget or the calculation of such amounts, including the definition of terms provided by the 

Budget Act—as set forth in title I thereof. 

S. Res. 45 (94th Congress) 

On January 30, 1975, the Senate reached a unanimous consent 

agreement that had the effect of adopting S. Res. 45, a measure 

providing for joint referral of impoundment messages from the 

President under Title X of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and legislation pertaining to impoundments. In addition to the referral of impoundment messages 

and legislation to the Appropriations Committee or appropriate 

authorizing committee, the Budget Committee was given referral 

of such matters to consider the ‘‘macroeconomic implications, impact on priorities and aggregate spending levels, and the legality 

of the President’s use of the deferral and rescission mechanism 

171 

2 See the remarks of Senator Judd Gregg in the Congressional Record (daily ed.), Feb. 14, 2005, 

p. S1337–S1338. 

under title X.’’ The agreement was modified on April 11, 1986, 

in the wake of the Chadha decision. The current text of the agreement reads as follows: 

Resolved, (1) That messages received pursuant to title X of the Congressional 

Budget and Impoundment Control Act be referred concurrently to the Appropriations Committee, to the Budget Committee, and to any other appropriate 

authorizing committee. 

(2) That bills, resolutions, and joint resolutions introduced with respect to 

rescissions and deferrals shall be referred to the Appropriations Committee, the 

Budget Committee, and pending implementation of section 410 of the Congressional Budget [and] Impoundment Control Act and subject to section 401(d), 

to any other committee exercising jurisdiction over contract and borrowing authority programs as defined by section 401(c)(2) (A) and (B). The Budget Committee and such other committees shall report their views, if any, to the Appropriations Committee within 20 days following referral of such messages, bills, 

resolutions, or joint resolutions. The Budget Committee’s consideration shall extend only to macroeconomic implications, impact on priorities and aggregate 

spending levels, and the legality of the President’s use of the deferral and rescission mechanism under title X. The Appropriations and authorizing committees 

shall exercise their normal responsibilities over programs and priorities. 

(3) If any committee to which a bill or resolution has been referred recommends its passage, the Appropriations Committee shall report that bill or 

resolution together with its views and reports of the Budget and any appropriate 

authorizing committees to the Senate within— 

(A) the time remaining under the Act in the case of rescissions, or 

(B) within 20 days in the case of deferrals. 

(4) The 20 day period referred to herein means twenty calendar days; and 

for the purposes of computing the twenty days, recesses or adjournments of the 

Senate for more than 3 days to a day certain shall not be counted; and for recesses and adjournments of more than 30 calendar days continuous duration or 

the sine die adjournment of a session, the 20 day period shall begin anew on 

the day following the reconvening of the Senate. 

Committee Rules of Procedure 

Senate Rule XXVI, Paragraph 2, requires each committee to 

adopt rules (‘‘not inconsistent with the Rules of the Senate’’) for 

its internal procedure and to publish them in the Congressional 

Record by March 1 of the first year of each Congress. Further, any 

amendment to a committee’s rules may not take effect until the 

amendment is published in the Congressional Record. 

The Budget Committee’s rules of procedure for the 109th Congress were published in the Congressional Record on February 14, 

2005.2 The rules are divided into seven sections dealing with: (1) 

meetings; (2) quorums and voting; (3) proxies; (4) hearings and 

hearing procedures; (5) committee reports; (6) use of display materials in committee; and (7) confirmation standards and procedures. 

172 

Legislation Developed by the Senate Committee 

on the Budget 

Concurrent Resolutions on the Budget: Fiscal Years 

1976–2007 

During the 32-year period from 1975 (for the FY1976 budget 

cycle) through 2006 (for the FY2007 budget cycle), the House and 

Senate adopted a total of 36 budget resolutions (see table 1). 

TABLE 1.—CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS ON THE BUDGET: FY1976–FY2007 

Congress Fiscal 

year Type 1 Budget resolution U.S. Statutes-at-Large citation 

94th 1976 First ........................

Second ....................

H. Con. Res. 218 ..........

H. Con. Res. 466 ..........

89 Stat. 1197–1198 

89 Stat. 1209–1210 

1977 First ........................

Second ....................

S. Con. Res. 109 ..........

S. Con. Res. 139 ..........

90 Stat. 3029–3030 

90 Stat. 3044–3045 

95th 1977 Third ....................... S. Con. Res. 10 ............ 91 Stat. 1666–1667 

1978 First ........................

Second ....................

S. Con. Res. 19 ............

H. Con. Res. 341 ..........

91 Stat. 1670–1673 

91 Stat. 1683–1684 

1979 First ........................

Second ....................

S. Con. Res. 80 ............

H. Con. Res. 683 ..........

92 Stat. 3870–3872 

92 Stat. 3878–3879 

96th 1980 First ........................

Second ....................

H. Con. Res. 107 ..........

S. Con. Res. 53 ............

93 Stat. 1413–1416 

93 Stat. 1428–1433 

1981 First ........................

Second ....................

H. Con. Res. 307 ..........

H. Con. Res. 448 ..........

94 Stat. 3655–3668 

94 Stat. 3680–3688 

97th 1982 First ........................

Second ....................

H. Con. Res. 115 ..........

S. Con. Res. 50 ............

95 Stat. 1743–1759 

95 Stat. 1778 

1983 ................................. S. Con. Res. 92 ............ 96 Stat. 2647–2661 

98th 1984 ................................. H. Con. Res. 91 ............ 97 Stat. 1501–1523 

1985 ................................. H. Con. Res. 280 .......... 98 Stat. 3484–3498 

99th 1986 ................................. S. Con. Res. 32 ............ 99 Stat. 1941–1959 

1987 ................................. S. Con. Res. 120 .......... 100 Stat. 4354–4370 

100th 1988 ................................. H. Con. Res. 93 ............ 101 Stat. 1986–2003 

1989 ................................. H. Con. Res. 268 .......... 102 Stat. 4875–4886 

101st 1990 ................................. H. Con. Res. 106 .......... 103 Stat. 2540–2554 

1991 ................................. H. Con. Res. 310 .......... 104 Stat. 5163–5181 

102nd 1992 ................................. H. Con. Res. 121 .......... 105 Stat. 2414–2433 

1993 ................................. H. Con. Res. 287 .......... 106 Stat. 5165–5189 

103rd 1994 ................................. H. Con. Res. 64 ............ 107 Stat. 2508–2538 

1995 ................................. H. Con. Res. 218 .......... 108 Stat. 5075–5103 

104th 1996 ................................. H. Con. Res. 67 ............ 109 Stat. 996–1030 

1997 ................................. H. Con. Res. 178 .......... 110 Stat. 4434–4482 

105th 1998 ................................. H. Con. Res. 84 ............ 111 Stat. 2710–2760 

1999 [Congress did not complete action on a budget resolution for this year] 

106th 2000 ................................. H. Con. Res. 68 ............ 113 Stat. 1968–1999 

173 

TABLE 1.—CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS ON THE BUDGET: FY1976–FY2007—Continued 

Congress Fiscal 

year Type 1 Budget resolution U.S. Statutes-at-Large citation 

2001 ................................. H. Con. Res. 290 .......... 114 Stat. 3139–3173 

107th 2002 ................................. H. Con. Res. 83 ............ 115 Stat. 2486–2516 

2003 [Congress did not complete action on a budget resolution for this year] 

108th 2004 ................................. H. Con. Res. 95 ............ 117 Stat. 2910–2942 

2005 [Congress did not complete action on a budget resolution for this year] 

109th 2006 ................................. H. Con. Res. 95 ............ [not yet available] 

2007 [Congress did not complete action on a budget resolution for this year] 

1 ‘‘Type’’ refers to whether the budget resolution was the first, second, or third for the fiscal year. For 

the first 7 years of the congressional budget process, the House and Senate adopted at least two budget 

resolutions each year. Beginning with the FY1983 budget resolution, the House and Senate have not adopted more than one budget resolution a year. 

Note: Although budget resolutions, as concurrent resolutions, do not become law, they are compiled in a 

special section of the U.S. Statutes-at-Large. 

Source: Congressional Research Service, CRS Report RL30297, Congressional Budget Resolutions: Selected Statistics and Information Guide, by Bill Heniff, Jr. and Justin Murray, Appendix B, pp. 20–21. 

The 1974 Act originally required that the Senate and House 

adopt two budget resolutions each year—an advisory budget resolution in the spring (by May 15) and a binding budget resolution 

in the fall (by September 15). Congress adopted the second required budget resolution from FY1976 through FY1982. For the 

following several years, through FY1986, Congress did not adopt 

a second budget resolution, instead relying on a feature in the first 

budget resolution that automatically deemed it to be the second 

budget resolution on October 1 if a second budget resolution had 

not been adopted by that date. In 1985, Congress amended the 

1974 Act to require only a single budget resolution each year, in 

the spring, and advanced its due date by 1 month, to April 15 

(first effective for FY1987). Section 304 (2 U.S.C. 635) of the Act 

allows Congress to adopt a revised budget resolution at any time. 

Congress adopted a third budget resolution for FY1977. 

Of the 36 budget resolutions adopted during this period, 7 were 

first budget resolutions, 7 were second budget resolutions, 1 was 

a third budget resolution, and 21 were single budget resolutions. 

The House and Senate were not able to reach final agreement 

on a budget resolution in four instances, for FY1999, FY2003, 

FY2005, and FY2007. 

Budget Reconciliation Acts 

As an optional procedure, reconciliation has not been used in 

every year that the congressional budget process has been in effect. 

Beginning with the first use of reconciliation by both the House 

and Senate in 1980, however, reconciliation has been used in most 

174 

3 On December 15, 1975, the Senate considered, amended, and passed H.R. 5559, the Revenue 

Adjustment Act of 1975, which reduced revenues by about $6.4 billion pursuant to a directive 

in the second budget resolution for FY1976. The measure was not regarded as a reconciliation bill 

when it was considered by the House, but it was considered under reconciliation procedures in the 

Senate. President Gerald Ford vetoed the measure later in the year and the House sustained his 

veto. See the remarks of Senator Russell Long and the Presiding Officer, on page 40540, and the 

remarks of Senator Edmund Muskie and others, on pages 40544–40550, in the Congressional Record, 

vol. 121, Dec. 15, 1975, regarding the status of H.R. 5559 as a reconciliation bill. 

years (see table 2).3 Congress has sent the President 21 reconciliation acts over the years; 18 were signed into law and 3 were vetoed (and the vetoes not overridden). 

Thirteen of the 21 acts were omnibus reconciliation measures 

reported by the Budget Committee (in which submissions from 

the instructed committees were incorporated by the Budget Committee without any substantive revision, as required by the 1974 

Act) and 7 were revenue reconciliation measures reported by the 

Finance Committee. In the one remaining instance, involving the 

Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, the 

final legislation merged together separate reconciliation measures 

reported by the Budget and Finance Committees. 

TABLE 2.—BUDGET RESOLUTIONS AND ASSOCIATED BUDGET RECONCILIATION ACTS: FY1981– 

FY2006 

Fiscal 

year Budget resolution Budget reconciliation act(s) Date enacted (or vetoed) 

1981 H. Con. Res. 307 Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1980 

(P.L. 96–499).

December 5, 1980 

1982 H. Con. Res. 115 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 

1981 (P.L. 97–35).

August 13, 1981 

1983 S. Con. Res. 92 Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act 

of 1982 (P.L. 97–248).

September 3, 1982 

Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 

1982 (P.L. 97–253).

September 8, 1982 

1984 H. Con. Res. 91 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 

1983 (P.L. 98–270).

April 18, 1984 

1986 S. Con. Res. 32 Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (P.L. 99–272).April 7, 1986 

1987 S. Con. Res. 120 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 

1986 (P.L. 99–509).

October 21, 1986 

1988 S. Con. Res. 93 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 

1987 (P.L. 100–203).

December 22, 1987 

1990 H. Con. Res. 106 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 

1989 (P.L. 101–239).

December 19, 1989 

1991 H. Con. Res. 310 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 

1990 (P.L. 101–508).

November 5, 1990 

1994 H. Con. Res. 64 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 

1993 (P.L. 103–66).

August 10, 1993 

175 

TABLE 2.—BUDGET RESOLUTIONS AND ASSOCIATED BUDGET RECONCILIATION ACTS: FY1981– 

FY2006—Continued 

Fiscal 

year Budget resolution Budget reconciliation act(s) Date enacted (or vetoed) 

1996 H. Con. Res. 67 Balanced Budget Act of 1995 (H.R. 

2491).

December 6, 1995 (vetoed) 

1997 H. Con. Res. 178 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 

(P.L. 104–193).

August 22, 1996 

1998 H. Con. Res. 84 Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (P.L. 

105–33).

August 5, 1997 

Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (P.L. 105– 

34).

August 5, 1997 

2000 H. Con. Res. 68 Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act of 1999 

(H.R. 2488).

September 23, 1999 

(vetoed) 

2001 H. Con. Res. 290 Marriage Tax Relief Reconciliation Act 

of 2000 (H.R. 4810).

August 5, 2000 (vetoed) 

2002 H. Con. Res. 83 Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (P.L. 107–16).June 7, 2001 

2004 H. Con. Res. 95 Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (P.L. 108–27).May 28, 2003 

2006 H. Con. Res. 95 Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 

109–171).

February 8, 2006 

Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 (P.L. 109–222).May 17, 2006 

Source: Congressional Research Service: (1) CRS Report RL33030, The Budget Reconciliation Process: 

House and Senate Procedures, by Robert Keith and Bill Heniff, Jr., Table 1, p. 4–5; and (2) CRS Report 

RL33132, Budget Reconciliation Legislation in 2005–2006 Under the FY2006 Budget Resolution, by Robert 

Keith, p. 2. 

Other Significant Legislation Enacted Into Law 

The Budget Committee has been involved in the development 

of significant measures other than budget resolutions and reconciliation measures. For the most part, these measures have pertained 

to changes in the Federal budget process. Major examples of such 

legislation that was enacted into law are listed and described 

below. In cases where important budget process changes were 

made as a separate act within omnibus reconciliation legislation or 

legislation raising the statutory limit on the public debt, the separate act is included in the list. 

Some of the measures listed below were not referred to or reported by the Budget Committee, and some originated as floor 

amendments. The Budget Committee, nonetheless, was centrally 

involved in formulating the legislation. The Balanced Budget and 

Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, for example, was carried 

in a measure increasing the statutory limit on the public debt 

176 

(such legislation is under the jurisdiction of the House Ways and 

Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee). It originated 

on October 9, 1985, as a floor amendment offered by Committee 

Chairman Pete Domenici and Ranking Member Lawton Chiles 

(modified Domenici-Chiles amendment number 771). 

Some of the measures developed by the Budget Committee were 

considered by the Senate but did not become law. While most of 

these measures dealt with budget process reform, others involved 

specialized aspects of Federal budgeting. Certain budget enforcement procedures, for example, may be suspended pursuant to Section 258 of the 1985 Act during periods when low economic 

growth occurs, as determined by a ‘‘low growth report’’ issued by 

the CBO Director. Whenever the CBO Director issues such a report, the Senate Budget Committee must report a suspension resolution, in the form of a Senate joint resolution, that is considered 

under expedited procedures (the House does not have comparable 

procedures). In three instances in 1991 and two in 2002, the 

Budget Committee reported the required suspension resolution unfavorably and the Senate rejected it in each instance. 

Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 

Title II of P.L. 99–177 (Increasing the Statutory Limit on the Public 

Debt); December 12, 1985; 99 Stat. 1038–1101. 

The Act established deficit targets intended to lead to a balanced budget by FY1991; created a sequestration process to enforce the targets, triggered by a report issued by the Comptroller 

General, involving automatic, largely across-the-board spending 

cuts; and made many changes in the Congressional Budget Act of 

1974, mainly ratifying recent changes in practice (such as requiring only a single budget resolution each year). The 1985 Act is 

also known as the ‘‘Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act’’ after its three 

primary sponsors in the Senate—Senators Phil Gramm, Warren 

Rudman, and Ernest Hollings (all of whom served on the Budget 

Committee at different times). 

Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Reaffirmation 

Act of 1987 

Title I of P.L. 100–119 (Increasing the Statutory Limit on the Public 

Debt); September 29, 1987; 101 Stat. 754–784. 

The Act revised and extended the deficit targets set in 1985, 

requiring a balanced budget by FY1993. In addition, in response 

to court action invalidating the role of the Comptroller General 

in triggering sequestration, the Act placed that authority in the 

OMB Director, and made changes in the congressional budget 

process under the 1974 Act. 

177 

Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 

Title XIII of P.L. 101–508 (Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 

1990); November 5, 1990; 104 Stat. 1388–573 through 630. 

In the wake of dissatisfaction with experiences under the deficit 

targets set in 1985 and revised in 1987, the Budget Enforcement 

Act (BEA) of 1990 effectively replaced them with discretionary 

spending limits and a ‘‘pay-as-you-go’’ (paygo) requirement 

through FY1995. Sequestration was retained as the means of enforcing the new mechanisms; both temporary and permanent 

changes were made in the congressional budget process under the 

1974 Act, including making the Byrd rule on extraneous matter 

in reconciliation measures part of the Act (Section 313); and special procedures were established to protect the long-term balances 

in the Social Security trust funds. 

Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 

Section 13201 (104 Stat. 1388–609 through 615) of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990. 

The Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 provided for the more 

accurate measurement of the costs of direct loans and loan guarantees, placed the costs of credit programs on a budgetary basis 

equivalent to other spending programs, and improved the methods 

of allocating resources among credit programs and between credit 

programs and other spending programs. This was achieved in part 

by defining the cost of credit programs to be the long-term cost 

to the government on a net present value basis, excluding administrative costs and certain incidental effects. The Act was incorporated into the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 as a new Title 

V. 

Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 

P.L. 103–66; August 10, 1993; 107 Stat. 683–685 (Title XIV). 

Title XIV (Budget Process Provisions) of the Omnibus Budget 

Reconciliation Act of 1993 extended the discretionary spending 

limits and paygo requirement, first established by the BEA of 

1990, for legislation enacted through the end of FY1998. The 

House and Senate initially considered more extensive budget process changes in this legislation, but ultimately decided to confine 

it to this more narrow purpose. 

Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 

P.L. 104–4; March 22, 1995; 109 Stat. 48–71. 

The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) of 1995 established procedures designed to curb the imposition of unfunded 

Federal mandates on State, local, and tribal governments and priVerDate jan 13 2004 11:54 May 09, 2007 Jkt 028749 PO 00000 Frm 00191 Fmt 5935 Sfmt 5935 C:\DOCS\BUDGET\28749.TXT CRS1 PsN: SKAYNE
178 

vate sector entities; required Federal agencies to foster greater participation by such governments and entities in the development of 

regulations; and directed the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations to study and make recommendations on issues 

pertaining to unfunded mandates. The Congressional Budget Office is required to prepare cost estimates with respect to mandates 

exceeding a threshold (that is adjusted periodically) and an intergovernmental point of order may be raised against legislation imposing unfunded mandates that exceed the threshold. UMRA was 

incorporated into the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 as Part 

B (Federal Mandates) of Title IV (Sections 421–428), and was 

amended in 1999 by the State Flexibility Clarification Act (P.L. 

106–141; December 7, 1999; 113 Stat. 1699–1700). 

Line Item Veto Act 

P.L. 104–130; April 9, 1996; 110 Stat. 1200–1212. 

The Line Item Veto Act augmented the rescission authority of 

the President in the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 by authorizing him to put line-item cancellations into effect upon the 

enactment of a law and providing that they could be overturned 

only if Congress enacted a law disapproving them within 30 days. 

Further, the authority was extended to items of direct spending 

(i.e., for entitlement programs) and certain limited tax benefits, as 

well as discretionary spending provided in annual appropriations 

acts. The Line Item Veto Act was incorporated into the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 as Part C (Line Item Veto), Title X 

(Sections 1021–1027). On June 25, 1998, the U.S. Supreme 

Court, in Clinton v. City of New York, held that the Act was unconstitutional as a violation of the Presentment Clause of the Constitution (Article I, Section 7, Clause 2). 

Budget Enforcement Act of 1997 

Title X of P.L. 105–33 (Balanced Budget Act of 1997); August 5, 

1997; 111 Stat. 677–712. 

The BEA of 1997 extended the discretionary spending limits 

and paygo requirement, first established under the BEA of 1990, 

for legislation enacted through the end of FY2002. In addition, 

it made permanent several changes in the 1974 Act that had been 

made on a temporary basis in the BEA of 1990, including the requirement that budget resolutions cover at least 5, rather than 3, 

fiscal years; and made many other, mostly minor, changes in the 

sequestration and congressional budget processes. 

179 

Glossary of Budget Terms 

Allocation.—For congressional budget purposes, an allocation is 

the distribution of budget authority and outlays to relevant 

committees (and subcommittees) based on the levels contained in the Congressional Budget Resolution. 

Appropriation Act.—A statute, under the jurisdiction of the 

House and Senate Appropriations Committees, that generally 

provides authority for Federal agencies to incur obligations 

and to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. Examples of appropriation acts are regular, supplemental, and continuing. 

Authorizing Committee.—A committee of the House or Senate, 

other than the Appropriations Committee, which has legislative jurisdiction over the operations of Federal programs and 

provides the authorizing legislation that is usually a prerequisite for making appropriations for those programs. Authorizing committees also have jurisdiction over the administration and collection of revenues and spending for mandatory 

programs since the government’s obligation to make payments for such programs is contained in the authorizing legislation. 

Authorizing Legislation.—Substantive legislation proposed by a 

committee of jurisdiction other than the Appropriations 

Committees that establishes or continues the operation of a 

Federal program or agency for a specific period of time or indefinitely. Authorizing legislation may provide new budget 

authority or authorize the future appropriation of either a 

fixed amount or such sums as are necessary for a program. 

Baseline.—A benchmark for measuring the budgetary effects of 

proposed changes in revenues or spending. The baseline is a 

projection of spending, revenues, and deficits into the budget 

year and out-years based on current laws and policies. 

Budget Authority.—The legal authority to enter into obligations 

which will result in immediate or future outlays, including 

appropriations, borrowing authority, contracting authority, 

and the authority to spend offsetting receipts and collections. 

Budget Deficit.—For unified deficit, the amount by which the 

government’s total outlays exceed its total revenues for a 

given fiscal year. For on-budget deficit, the amount by which 

180 

the government’s on-budget (which excludes the two Social 

Security trust funds and the transactions of the U.S. Postal 

Service) outlays exceeds its on-budget revenues. 

Budget Resolution.—A concurrent resolution adopted by both 

Houses of Congress as part of the annual budget and appropriations process, setting forth an overall budget plan for 

Congress against which individual appropriation bills, other 

spending bills, and revenue measures are to be evaluated. As 

a plan of Congress, the resolution is not presented to the 

President for signature and does not have the force of law. 

The concurrent resolution must contain budget levels for at 

least 5 fiscal years and may contain reconciliation instructions 

to specified committees. 

Budget Surplus.—For the unified budget, the amount by which 

the government’s total revenues exceed its total outlays for a 

given fiscal year. For on-budget, the amount by which the 

government’s on-budget (which excludes the two Social Security trust funds and the transactions of the U.S. Postal Service) revenues exceeds its on-budget outlays. 

Continuing Resolution.—An appropriation act that provides 

spending authority for Federal agencies and programs to continue in operation when action on the regular appropriation 

acts has not been completed by the beginning of the fiscal 

year. 

Cost Estimates.—Estimates of the impact legislation under consideration by Congress would have on the Federal budget if 

the legislation became law. Costs estimates are provided to 

Congress by the Congressional Budget Office. 

Credit Reform.—The method of controlling and accounting for 

credit programs (loans and loan guarantees) in the Federal 

budget. Unlike the rest of the budget, loans and loan guarantees are accounted for on an accrual basis. 

Direct Spending.—Also known as mandatory spending. As defined in the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control 

Act of 1985, entitlement authority, the Food Stamp Program, 

and budget authority provided by law other than in appropriation acts. 

Discretionary Spending.—A category of spending (budget authority and outlays) provided in and controlled by annual appropriation acts. (See also Appropriation Acts.) 

Entitlement.—A legal obligation of the Federal Government to 

make payments to a person(s) or entity that meets the eligibility criteria set in law and for which the budget authority 

is not provided in advance in an appropriation act. Spending 

for entitlement programs is controlled through the eligibility 

181 

criteria and benefit or payment rules. Examples of entitlements are Social Security and Medicare. 

Emergency Spending.—Budget authority, designated by Congress as emergency spending, is exempt (along with the outlays that flow from it) from spending limits set forth in a 

concurrent resolution on the budget. 

Federal Debt, Gross.—The total amount borrowed by the government from the public or from government accounts. 

Debt subject to limit.—A subset of gross Federal debt, debt 

subject to limit is Federal debt that is subject to a statutory limit on its issuance. The limit applies to Federal 

debt, excluding a small portion of the debt issued by the 

Department of the Treasury and all of the small amount 

of debt issued by other Federal agencies (primarily the 

Tennessee Valley Authority and the Postal Service). It has 

two components.—debt held by the government and debt 

held by the public. 

Debt held by the government.—Represents the holdings of 

debt by Federal trust funds and other special government 

funds. 

Debt held by the public.—Represents the holdings of debt 

by individuals, institutions, other buyers outside the Federal Government and the Federal Reserve System. The 

change in debt held by the public in any given year closely 

tracks the unified budget deficit for that year. 

Fiscal Policy.—Federal Government policies with respect to taxes 

and spending that affect the amount of government debt as 

well as the level, composition, and distribution of national 

output and income. 

Fiscal Year.—A fiscal year is a 12-month accounting period. The 

fiscal year for the Federal Government begins October 1 and 

ends September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2007 is 

the year beginning October 1, 2006 and ending September 

30, 2007. 

Functional Classification.—A system of classifying budget resources by major purpose so that budget authority and outlays can be related in terms of the national needs being addressed (for example, national defense, health) regardless of 

the agency administering the program. There are currently 20 

functions. A function may be divided into two or more subfunctions depending upon the complexity of the national 

need addressed by that function. 

Impoundment.—A generic term referring to any action or inaction by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government that 

182 

defers or precludes the obligation or expenditure of budget 

authority. 

Mandatory Spending.—Also known as direct spending. As defined in the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control 

Act of 1985, entitlement authority, the Food Stamp Program, 

and budget authority provided by law other than in appropriation acts. 

Markup.—Meetings where congressional committees work on language of bills or resolutions. At Budget Committee markups, 

the House and Senate Budget Committees work on the language and numbers contained in budget resolutions and legislation affecting the congressional budget process. 

Obligation.—A legally binding commitment by the Federal Government that will result in outlays, immediately or in the future. 

Off-Budget.—Those budgetary accounts designated by law as excluded from the unified budget totals. As of 2007, the revenues and outlays of the two Social Security trust funds (the 

Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance Trust Fund) and the transactions of the 

Postal Service are the only off-budget accounts. Budget documents routinely report the on-budget and off-budget amounts 

separately and then add them together to arrive at the consolidated or unified government totals. 

On-Budget.—All budgetary accounts other than those designated 

by law as off-budget. (See also Off-Budget) 

Outlays.—Outlays are disbursements by the Treasury in the form 

of checks, cash, or electronic funds transfers to liquidate a 

Federal obligation. Outlays flow in part from budget authority granted in prior years (outlays prior) and in part from 

budget authority provided for the year in which the disbursements occur (outlays new). 

Pay-As-You-Go (paygo).—A budgetary enforcement mechanism 

originally set forth in the Budget Enforcement Act (BEA), 

which expired at the end of fiscal year 2002. Under this 

mechanism, proposed changes in, or new permanent, law affecting direct spending and revenues were expected to be deficit neutral. Statutory paygo was enforced through sequestration (across-the-board cuts in certain direct spending programs). In addition to statutory paygo, the Senate, in the 

concurrent resolution on the budget, has also established various internal paygo rules, enforced by a 60-vote point of order 

which is still in effect. 

President’s Budget.—The document sent to Congress by the 

President typically on the first Monday in February of each 

183 

year, requesting new budget authority for Federal programs 

and estimating Federal revenues and outlays for the upcoming 

fiscal year. 

Revenues.—Collections from the public arising from the government’s sovereign power to tax. Revenues include individual 

and corporate income taxes, social insurance taxes (such as Social Security payroll taxes), excise taxes, estate and gift taxes, 

customs duties and the like. 

Reconciliation Process.—A special, fast-track process by which 

Congress, in its budget resolution, includes reconciliation instructions to specific committees, directing them to report 

legislation by a certain date that changes spending and/or 

revenues. Reconciliation legislation may also contain a change 

in the debt limit. Reconciliation is governed by special rules 

that limit debate and the ability of Senators to offer amendments. 

Rescission.—Legislation enacted by Congress that cancels the 

availability of previously enacted budget authority before the 

authority expires. 

Reserve Fund.—A provision in a budget resolution that grants 

the chairman of the Budget Committee the authority to make 

changes in budget aggregates and committee allocations once 

some condition or conditions have been met. 

Scoring or Scorekeeping.—The process for estimating budget 

authority, outlay, revenue and deficit levels that result from 

legislative actions. The Committees on the Budget of the 

House and Senate determine all estimates for congressional 

purposes. The committees are assisted in the process by the 

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and, for legislation dealing with the Internal Revenue Code, by the Joint Committee 

on Taxation, which provides revenue estimates of such legislation through CBO. Scorekeeping data prepared by the CBO 

include status reports on the effect of congressional actions 

and comparisons of these actions to targets and ceilings set 

by Congress. These reports are submitted by the Budget 

Committees for printing in the Congressional Record on a regular basis. 

Sequester or Sequestration.—Under Budget Enforcement Act 

(BEA) provisions, which expired in 2002, the cancellation of 

budgetary resources provided by discretionary appropriations 

or direct spending laws. New budget authority, unobligated 

balances, direct spending authority, and obligation limitations 

were ‘‘sequestrable’’ resources; that is, they were subject to reduction or cancellation under a Presidential sequester order. 

184 

Supplemental Appropriation.—An act appropriating funds in 

addition to those in the regular annual appropriations acts. 

Supplemental appropriations are often designated as emergency requirements and are for unexpected and non-recurring 

purposes. 

Unfunded Mandates.—In general, Federal statutes and regulations that require State, local, or tribal governments or the 

private sector to expend resources to achieve legislative goals 

without being provided Federal funding to cover the costs. 

185 

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