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RAISING THE BAR FOR CONGRESS: REFORM 

PROPOSALS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 14, 2012 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

KRISTINE V. LAM, Professional Staff Member 

JOSEPH C. HARRIS JR., Counsel, Office of Senator Lieberman 

NICHOLAS A. ROSSI, Minority Staff Director 

JULIE A. DUNNE, Minority Senior Counsel 

JENNIFER L. TARR, Minority Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

PATRICIA R. HOGAN, Publications Clerk 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Hearing Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 1 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 4 

Senator Brown .................................................................................................. 22 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 25 

Senator Pryor .................................................................................................... 27 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 29 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 33 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 36 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2012 

Hon. Johnny Isakson, a U.S. Senator from the State of Georgia ........................ 6 

Hon. Dean Heller, a U.S. Senator from the State of Nevada .............................. 8 

Hon. Jim Cooper, a Representative in Congress from the State of Tennessee .. 11 

Hon. Thomas M. Davis, Co-Founder, No Labels; Director, Federal Government Affairs, Deloitte and Touche LLP ............................................................. 13 

William A. Galston, Co-Founder, No Labels; Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution ............................................................................. 15 

Donald R. Wolfensberger, Director, Congress Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars ............................................................................... 17 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Cooper, Hon. Jim: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 42 

Davis, Hon. Thomas M.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 13 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 46 

Galston, William A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 50 

Heller, Hon. Dean: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 39 

Isakson, Hon. Johnny: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38 

Wolfensberger, Donald R.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 17 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53 

APPENDIX 

Chart referenced by Senator Johnson .................................................................... 57 

Testimony supplement submitted for the Record by Mr. Galston ....................... 58 

Documents submitted for the Record by Mr. Galston .......................................... 61 

Letter from Mr. Galston and Mr. Davis, dated March 27, 2012 .......................... 92 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from: 

Mr. Davis ........................................................................................................... 93 

Mr. Galston ....................................................................................................... 95 

Mr. Wolfensberger ............................................................................................ 96 

(1) 

RAISING THE BAR FOR CONGRESS: REFORM 

PROPOSALS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2012 

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lieberman, Pryor, Collins, Coburn, Brown, and 

Johnson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. The hearing will come to order. Good 

morning. And before we proceed, I know Senator Brown would like 

to be recognized to make a brief statement. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just note I 

am running the Veterans Committee’s hearing over in the Russell 

Building. I am going to go and do that for a little bit, and I will 

be back, but I just wanted to just let you know that. And now that 

my spot is reserved, I appreciate it. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Excellent. Thank you. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks. Thanks to everybody who is here 

for this hearing this morning. 

As you know, we are going to discuss ways this morning to break 

the present gridlock in Congress and get this institution back to 

what it was created to do, which is to work productively for our 

country. 

I know that for some people the very decision to hold this hearing was controversial. They have asked us why we would do it. And 

my response was a question back: Why wouldn’t we want to hold 

this hearing? Why would anyone feel, based on the record, that 

Congress is fulfilling its responsibilities to the American people? 

Why wouldn’t we want to open the conversation, particularly on 

the broad series of proposals made by a relatively new citizengrassroots, good-government group called No Labels? 

I know that the particular legislative proposal—the one part of 

the No Labels reform program that is legislative has been referred 

to this Committee—the No Budget, No Pay proposal, is controversial. But it, too, in many ways expresses and frames the public 

mood toward Congress today. 

2 

Somebody said to me this proposal is like a legislative scream— 

it is. And it is a scream—whether Members of Congress agree with 

it or not—that has to be heard and responded to. 

The fact is that, as everybody knows, the public’s estimation of 

Congress is at historic lows, and there is ample reason why that 

is so. Congress is just not fulfilling some of the basic responsibilities that the Constitution gives us, including, of course, the responsibility to propose, to debate, and to adopt in a timely manner 

a budget for our country. Let me give you some examples of why 

we are here. 

It has been more than 3 years since Congress has passed a budget on time and more than a decade since Congress has done so in 

the manner prescribed by the rules, with all of its appropriations 

bills being separately considered and passed. 

Nominations to judicial and executive positions are often held up 

for months for political reasons by procedural maneuvers, and then 

when those nominations come to the floor, they pass by overwhelming bipartisan majorities. But in the meantime, important 

parts of our Executive and Judicial Branches of government have 

gone without the leadership that they need to function on the people’s behalf. 

On Monday of this week, in the midst of what has been called 

a judicial emergency, which is to say that there are great backlogs 

of cases in many Federal courts because there are not enough sitting judges, the Majority Leader of the Senate filed procedural motions on the nominations of 17 judges which have been held up, 

even though they came out of the Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support. 

And then last summer, as we all know, we came perilously close 

to defaulting on our Nation’s fiscal obligations as the debt ceiling 

fight dragged on and on to a critical deadline. Default would not 

only have left us unable to pay our debt, but would have also forced 

a government shutdown. 

Standard & Poor’s concisely summed up the situation when it 

announced it was dropping our Nation’s long-time AAA credit rating to AA-plus, and Standard & Poor’s said, ‘‘The downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of 

American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at 

a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges.’’ That is a classic 

financial community understatement, but it is surely the sad truth. 

Today we are going to consider those possible reforms that No 

Labels and others have put forward, and as we consider them, I 

think we also need to focus on the prevailing political and congressional mentality that considers ‘‘compromise’’ a dirty word and 

makes legislative gridlock practically inevitable. 

Partisanship and ideology have been a part of American democracy since our beginning, but our forefathers did not let their competing partisan loyalties and often quite strongly held competing 

views prevent them from reaching the kind of compromises that 

were so central to the formation of our country and to the progress 

that we have achieved since then. In fact, the House and the Senate are themselves the result of the Great Compromise, which is 

the erroneous name for it—the correct name is, of course, the ‘‘Connecticut Compromise.’’ [Laughter.] 

3 

Because it was authored by two of my home State’s delegates to 

the Constitutional Convention, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, as a way to balance the interests of the large-population 

States and the small-population States. It was one of the very reasons why the Constitution was adopted and how the government 

was able to proceed. 

Among the very first legislative issues that Congress had to confront was how to fund the Federal Government and how to pay off 

our Revolutionary War debt. Sound familiar? Factions quickly lined 

up behind two of the great giants of the day, Thomas Jefferson and 

Alexander Hamilton, but both of those men and their followers 

were able to work through their differences and reach a compromise agreement that put our Nation on a sound financial footing that both funded the Federal Government and paid down the 

debt. 

And in modern times, which seem far from where we are now, 

Congress has been able to put together bipartisan majorities to 

pass a lot of landmark legislation and in doing so overcame serious 

differences—I am thinking here, for instance, of the creation of Social Security or the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s. They took on 

historic challenges and transformed our Nation in ways that are 

everlasting. 

Compromise in all these cases meant not an abandonment of 

principle, but a willingness by all involved to settle for less than 

100 percent of what each had originally sought. 

Today, while the enormous challenges our Nation faces continue, 

the spirit of compromise is largely gone. Today members who honestly seek to understand and accommodate views from the other 

side of the aisle are not often embraced warmly by their own parties. In fact, too often they are punished. We have a national debt today approaching $16 trillion and 13 

million of our fellow Americans remain unemployed. Our Nation’s 

computer networks, on which so much of our economic prosperity 

and national defense depend, are under attack from rival nations, 

terrorists, and organized criminal syndicates. Iran seeks a nuclear 

weapon. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is massacring his own 

people, and our mission in Afghanistan is foundering. 

We need a Congress that can vigorously debate these and the 

many other great challenges we face, find compromise, and then 

come together for the good of the Nation. And that is why I think 

the proposals that we are going to hear today really offer us the 

hope of getting America’s legislative train back on track. 

We are going to hear not only testimony from colleagues Senator 

Dean Heller and Congressman Jim Cooper on the No Budget, No 

Pay proposal, but Senator Johnny Isakson is here to testify about 

the biennial budget proposal, which is a response to that. And then 

on the second panel, we will have some outside experts, independent thinkers who will comment on the range of proposals before us. 

I have spent a lot of time going back to the early Americans because I think we need their wisdom and also the model that they 

set by their actions. President Washington, in his first address to 

a joint session of the House and Senate on April 30, 1789, after he 

was sworn in, closed with a prayer asking that ‘‘the benign parent 

4 

of the human race’’ bestow his blessing on the House and Senate 

so that they might deliberate in ‘‘perfect tranquility’’ with ‘‘enlarged 

views’’ and ‘‘temperate consultations.’’ 

It seems like a long time ago. However, history shows in the decades and centuries since then that Congress has at times reached 

Washington’s level and realized his vision, and when it has done 

so, it has been at its best. Now more than ever, Congress needs to 

put partisanship and ideological rigidity aside and put the needs of 

our great country first. We need to talk to each other, as Washington said, ‘‘in temperate language’’ so that we might not only enlarge our views but bring needed tranquility to the national dialogue as well—and, incidentally, provide results to the people of 

America who have been good enough to give us the privilege of 

serving here. 

Senator Collins. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

With enormous problems facing our country and Congress having 

little to show by way of accomplishments, our witnesses today are 

shining a spotlight on how Congress could accomplish more and 

bicker less. 

A recent analysis by the Washington Times reveals that last year 

marked the least productive session of Congress in more than 60 

years. Whether one examines hours of debate, the amount of conference reports produced, or the number of votes taken, the data 

validate the instinctive frustration that many Americans feel about 

the lack of accomplishments in Washington. 

Like many of our witnesses, I have always believed that bipartisanship and compromise are the key to tackling the major problems confronting our Nation, whether it is a poor economy, high 

gasoline prices, or the $15 trillion debt. 

Unfortunately, however, that seems out of fashion today. Sitting 

down with those on the opposite side of an issue, figuring out what 

matters most to each side, negotiating in good faith, and attempting to reach a solution are actions that are too often vilified by the 

partisans on each side of the aisle. Perhaps that is why the American people are so angry with incumbents and why the public’s perception of Congress is so dismal. 

And who can blame the public for their frustration? Today we 

are marking 1,050 days since the Senate has passed a budget. The 

Majority Leader has made the stunning statement that he does not 

intend to take up the President’s budget—or any other budget, for 

that matter—which is a troubling abdication of the Senate’s responsibility under the law. 

The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 

1974, a law written by one of my predecessors, Senator Ed Muskie 

from Maine, requires Congress to adopt an annual budget resolution, and that budget is critical to controlling spending through 

binding caps and is essential if we are to rein in our ruinous debt 

that is now virtually the size of the entire economy. 

So I certainly understand the desire to hold Congress’ feet to the 

fire. Some of the proposals discussed here today could help while 

5 

others may not be as effective. I believe that there are several 

worthwhile reform options that we should and must consider. 

First, let us take up each and every one of the appropriations 

bills on time prior to the start of the fiscal year and allow each bill 

to be debated, amended, and considered on its own merits. That 

would help restore the public’s confidence, lead to more carefully 

considered bills, and restore the Senate tradition of free and open 

debate. This bad habit of combining all or most of the funding bills 

into one gargantuan package produces thousands of pages and little time for Members to scrutinize the fine print and trillions of 

dollars in spending. 

Second, we need a better understanding of the programs we fund 

and how they are working or not working. That requires more rigorous and more frequent oversight, and that is why I am proud to 

be a cosponsor of Senator Isakson’s bill that would establish a 

budget for 2 years rather than one. This is the approach that is 

used by the State of Maine and many other States. Such a schedule 

would free Congress to devote the off year to conducting oversight 

together in a bipartisan way on the programs and agencies we 

fund, regardless of which party is in charge of the Executive 

Branch. More systemic due diligence could produce more bipartisan 

consensus about needed reforms, program eliminations, and spending reductions, or even spending increases for some worthwhile 

programs. I am grateful that our colleague, Senator Isakson, is 

here today to discuss his biennial budgeting bill. 

Third, I want to acknowledge Senator Coburn’s leadership in offering legislation aimed at identifying redundancy and overlap in 

Federal programs. Without better information, Congress will continue to create scores of new programs every year, adding to the 

thousands that already exist. America cannot afford any further 

delay in creating the transparency that would help us prevent duplication and overlap. 

There is another proposal that we are considering today from the 

No Labels organization that would require Members to go without 

pay unless we pass a budget and all of the regular appropriations 

bills prior to the October 1 deadline. Our esteemed colleagues Senator Heller and Congressman Cooper are presenting this intriguing 

option. Of course, I think it is important to acknowledge that the 

power to negotiate a budget through a committee and bring it up 

for a vote on the Senate floor is not equally shared by all Members, 

no matter how forcefully those of us who are not in leadership may 

advocate for a budget. 

My point is that my own determination to pass a budget is motivated by doing what is best, by doing what is right, for the people 

of Maine and for the citizens of this Nation. But I do not control 

the Senate agenda. 

What might be more effective? Changing the rules to require that 

a budget be passed before a single funding bill could be considered 

and passing Senator Isakson’s biennial budget bill are two worthwhile options that would make a difference. 

As Americans tighten their belts in these troubled times, they 

have less tolerance for a profligate, partisan Congress that avoids 

the most basic discipline of developing a budget, and that must 

change. 

6 

1The prepared statement of Senator Isakson appears in the Appendix on page 38. 

Finally, let me very briefly touch on another proposal put forth 

by No Labels. It aims to improve congressional civility by calling 

for no negative campaigning against fellow incumbents. I am a firm 

believer in what I refer to as ‘‘the Chafee rule.’’ When I was a 

freshman Senator in 1997, Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island 

advised me never to campaign against those with whom I serve. 

‘‘Campaign for your Republican colleagues,’’ he said. ‘‘Go into 

States with open seats. But do not campaign against your Democratic colleagues. It will poison your relationships with them and 

make it far more difficult for you to work with them.’’ 

That was great advice, and it is advice that I have always followed. But, nevertheless, the Chafee rule, to which I adhere, is distinct from a ban on saying unpleasant or uncomfortable things 

about the actions of our colleagues. What would such a ban have 

meant in June 1950 when Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a freshman Senator, took to the floor of the Senate and spoke out against 

Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was sitting just two rows behind 

her? She denounced his actions as an assault on the right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, to protest, and to have independent 

thought. And she did that not only on the Senate floor but elsewhere. 

So I think we have to be careful to make sure that we strike the 

right balance. I strongly support efforts to bring more civility to 

Congress. I believe, however, that despite rules or bans or pledges, 

Members have always been and will always be restrained primarily 

by their own decency and their commitment to the voters, their 

country, and our Constitution, and by the American people demanding more civility in Congress. 

I look forward to a discussion of these issues today, and thank 

you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Collins, for 

that excellent statement. Of course, I agree with you on the whole 

idea that Members of Congress should not campaign against colleagues of the other party. In our case, we have taken that even 

one step further. Though we are of different parties, we have campaigned for each other. And that is not the reason why we work 

so well together, and I think this Committee has been productive, 

but it sure does not hurt. 

We will go now to our first panel. I do want to say for the record, 

unfortunately, the Senate will begin voting on matters at 11:30. 

That means I can stay at least close to 11:45. If we are not fully 

done, I will try to come back. But there will be three votes then 

on the highway bill. 

So let us proceed with Senator Isakson, and we call in order of 

seniority. I notice the No Labels provision does not inherently call 

for an end to the seniority system, so we can call you without guilt 

first, Senator Isakson. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHNNY ISAKSON,1 A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA 

Senator ISAKSON. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Lieberman, and thank you, Senator Collins. You both are examples of 

7 

what these people here today want out of our Congress, and that 

is good people dedicated to solving problems and reaching across 

party lines to work together. And I commend you on holding this 

hearing today. I commend Representative Cooper and my colleague 

Senator Heller for their engagement in this important issue. And 

I take personal privilege to acknowledge the presence of Lisa Borders, an outstanding elected and civic leader of the City of Atlanta 

for whom I have the greatest admiration and appreciation for what 

she has done for so many years in our city. 

I would like to ask unanimous consent that my printed statement be included in the record. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Without objection, so ordered. 

Senator ISAKSON. I do that because I want to talk to you very 

personally and very sincerely and not reading from a piece of 

paper, which I will put over here. 

George Washington engaged the benign parent to come to the 

House and Senate and allow them to debate in civil discord so they 

could come up with decisions that made sense for the country. We 

now suffer from benign neglect in the Congress of the United 

States of America. We neglect the most important responsibilities 

that we have, and we suffer because of that. 

Senator Johnson, who sits to your right and my left, ran a business very successfully for years, a lot more successfully, I am sure, 

than mine. But I ran a business for years, and in my business, 

every September we began having all of our branch offices, all 28 

of them, submit a budget. We had a retreat in November where we 

thrashed out the budget. We set our goals for sales in the future, 

determined how much revenue would come in because of those 

sales. And then we budgeted our expenditures accordingly, and we 

kicked off the next year knowing what we expected to earn, what 

we were going to spend out of that, and how much of a bottom line 

the company was going to have to reinvest in the company. And we 

spent that next year constantly tweaking that budget based on circumstances. We had a system that forced us to do the right thing. 

The Congress of the United States needs a system to force it to 

do the right thing. Twenty of the 50 States have biennial budgets, 

and I am very honored that Jeanne Shaheen, the former governor 

of New Hampshire, a fellow Member of the Senate and a Democrat, 

joined me in this legislation, along with 32 other Members of the 

Senate, in a bipartisan bill promoting the biennial budget. And 

what it portends is this: Instead of budgeting and appropriating 

every year—or in this case as we are doing now—you set up a system where in the first year of a new Congress you do a 2-year 

budget and a 2-year appropriations act. The odd-numbered year is 

the first year and the even-numbered year is the second year. The 

biennial appropriation then allows you to do oversight of that 

spending in the even-numbered year, which just happens to be the 

year you are running for re-election if you are in the House, or 

every three elections you are running for in the Senate. So instead 

of campaigning on the bacon you are bringing home from the budget process, you are talking about the savings you are finding and 

efficiencies through oversight. 

There is a trash bin somewhere in Washington, DC, or a recycling bin, where all the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports 

8 

1The prepared statement of Senator Heller appears in the Appendix on page 39. 

and all the inspector general (IG) reports go and are thrown away. 

We call for investigations every year in efficiency. We call on agencies to examine themselves. We have hearings on them. There is 

one hearing, no follow-up, it goes in the trash bin, and we go back 

to a process of arguing politically over whether we should budget 

at all. 

So my proposal is very simple. It is not an original idea. It is not 

mine. It is the original idea of 20 of our most fiscally sound States. 

It is based on my experience as a businessman. It is based on the 

practical knowledge that everybody in this room understands. 

Every American family in our recession has had to sit around their 

kitchen table prioritizing their expenditures and living within their 

means. It is time the government that they elect did the exact 

same thing. And I would submit to you the Biennial Budget and 

Appropriations Act is the way to do that. 

Last, I find it interesting that 3 years ago Congress passed a biennial budget and a biennial appropriations act. We did it when we 

were almost on the doorstep of a government shutdown. We knew 

we had all these veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, 

and we did a 2-year appropriation for the Veterans Administration 

to have the continuity of funding to take care of the soldiers that 

had risked their lives or even died for us. If it was that serious for 

that occasion, it is that serious now for the entire government. It 

is a way to systematically appropriate and budget, plan and have 

accountability, and in the end have a more efficient government 

that responds to what the American people want sitting around our 

kitchen table debating our priorities and living within our means. 

I thank the both of you for the time to testify today. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Senator Isakson, thanks very much for 

that statement. I was thinking as you were talking, I think if there 

is one thing on which Members of the Senate on a nonpartisan 

basis, it is that you carry within yourself the civility and temperament that Washington hoped for in Members of the Senate. 

I know you have a busy schedule, so whenever you want to leave, 

we will understand. 

Senator ISAKSON. If we are not going to do questions, I will leave 

because I have to co-chair a hearing for another committee. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Go right ahead. Thank you. 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you very much. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Next we go to Senator Dean Heller from 

the State of Nevada. Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. DEAN HELLER,1 A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF NEVADA 

Senator HELLER. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thanks for the introduction. 

I sent a letter to you and Ranking Member Collins last September, to encourage this Committee to look at this legislation. 

And I appreciate the opportunity and thank you for the opportunity 

to talk about No Budget, No Pay, something obviously supported 

by myself, a Republican; my colleague here to my left, Congressman Cooper, a Democrat; and the No Labels community, a biparVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:26 Sep 24, 2012 Jkt 073685 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\73685.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
9 

tisan group that is looking for ways to change the direction of 

Washington. 

I want to start out by talking about the State of Nevada that is 

currently enduring the highest unemployment rate in the country. 

In fact, Nevada has led the Nation in unemployment for more than 

2 years. And as I travel the State, I hear from individuals who are 

laboring to make ends meet—families who stay up late working on 

their budget around the kitchen table. 

But in Washington, DC, it is business as usual. Our Nation’s 

capital remains a pain-free zone. Congress continually kicks the 

can down the road, leaving tough fiscal decisions for future congresses, future administrations, and, of course, future generations. 

Our failure to budget is one major example. President Obama’s 

most recent State of the Union address marked 1,000 days since 

the U.S. Senate passed a binding budget resolution. Since Congress 

last passed a budget, the Federal Government has spent $9.4 trillion, adding $4.1 trillion to the debt. In fiscal year 2011 alone, 

Washington spent $3.6 trillion. Compare that to the last time the 

budget was balanced, when $1.8 trillion was spent. 

I was particularly concerned by the tone set for the 2013 fiscal 

year, as Senate leadership announced there would not be a regular 

budget process before the President even submitted his budget. 

As the budget has been ignored, the regular appropriations process has broken down. Huge omnibus spending measures and continuing resolutions have replaced the regular appropriations process. This regular appropriations process is a means through which 

Congress should be engaged in rigorous oversight of Federal spending, and Congress has proven delinquent in its duties through a 

dysfunctional addiction to short-term, shortsighted funding measures. 

Members of Congress are willfully refusing to put our Nation on 

a path to long-term fiscal responsibility. As long as this is the case, 

Americans will continue to be frustrated and angry with Washington’s inability to produce real results. 

In light of these facts, is it really any mystery why Congress is 

currently experiencing its worst approval ratings in history? 

I crafted the No Budget, No Pay Act to force Congress to face reality and take responsibility for running this country. This legislation requires that the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives 

pass a budget and all appropriations bills by the beginning of each 

fiscal year. Failure to do so would result in the loss of pay until 

Congress takes its job seriously. If Congress does not complete its 

constitutional duties, then Members should not be paid. 

This concept resonates with the American people. I know because 

I asked Nevadans during a series of telephone town hall meetings 

last year whether they supported a bill that would withhold Members of Congress’ pay if they failed to pass a budget. I include Nevadans of all political persuasions—including Independents, Democrats, and Republicans. More than 4,000 Nevadans participated in 

this poll, and 84 percent of them supported the No Budget, No Pay 

concept. 

I doubt Nevada is alone in this sentiment. Members of the Committee, I submit that if 84 percent of Americans across the political 

10 

spectrum agree on something, Congress needs to stop what it is 

doing and pay attention. 

If we spent more time talking about what the American people 

agree on, I guarantee you that Congress would produce better results. More importantly, we would actually implement policies that 

would encourage the economic growth we need to ensure that 

workers can have good jobs to provide for their families. 

I have had some people tell me that No Budget, No Pay is just 

a talking point. But it is not to me, and it is not to the bipartisan 

cosponsors who have joined this effort. No Budget, No Pay would 

hold Congress accountable to the American people. It reflects the 

principle that an honest day’s work will result in an honest day’s 

pay. 

Too many in Congress have come to expect an honest day’s pay 

whether or not they have actually accomplished the work of the 

people. Members of Congress are indeed out of touch with the 

American people if they believe they should be rewarded for a job 

poorly done or one not done at all. 

I have heard some of my colleagues scoff at the timeline established by this legislation. But Congress has been able to accomplish 

its regular budget and appropriations processes before the start of 

new fiscal years in recent history. It happened under President 

Clinton and a Republican Congress. And it happened under President Reagan with a Democratic Congress in 1988. There are a 

handful of other examples—not as many as there should be—but 

the fact remains that these deadlines have been met before, and 

now is the time to start meeting those deadlines again. 

While the No Budget, No Pay Act will not solve every problem 

in Washington, I sincerely believe that it would help restore regular order in the budget and the appropriations processes. These 

essential functions of Congress are vital to fiscal responsibility and 

keeping our Nation’s fiscal house in order. We cannot hope to make 

progress in this Congress or this country until we take our constitutional responsibilities seriously. 

My hope is that the No Budget, No Pay Act will be adopted as 

part of a broader effort to change the way Congress does business 

and restore the confidence of the American people in their government. 

So, Chairman Lieberman and Senator Collins, thank you for 

holding this important hearing, and I deeply appreciate the Committee’s time and look forward to continuing this important discussion in the future. Thanks. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Heller. We are holding the hearing because we believe that the proposal you have 

made with Congressman Cooper and others deserves attention because it does express a public view, and it hopefully will lead to 

some kind of action to deal with the total breakdown of the budget 

process hopefully in this session of Congress. 

Senator HELLER. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. 

Congressman Cooper from Tennessee, welcome to the other side 

of the Capitol. You are always welcome here. It is good to see you 

this morning. 

11 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Cooper appears in the Appendix on page 42. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. JIM COOPER,1 A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman and Senator Collins. I appreciate your holding this hearing, and I also appreciate 

the attendance of Senators Coburn, Pryor, and Johnson. I appreciate your taking time to be here. 

As everyone knows, about 90 percent of the public disapproves 

of the way that Congress has been acting. Unfortunately, too few 

of our colleagues are listening to that discontent, and too few are 

focusing on ways to fix the broken branch of government. 

I have been working on this for many years—I had a book out 

in 2006—and trying to do my best to improve this institution, 

which I dearly love. But we have to realize that this year we have 

a rare chance to make some of these good reform ideas reality. 

I think this hearing is important because this is the first formal 

institutional recognition that I have seen that Congress knows it 

is sick. The question is: Will Congress be able to heal itself? 

We do not know the answer to this question. First of all, a reform has to be able for Congress to swallow. If a reform is palatable but not strong enough to cure, it will not do any good. 

Congress is its own doctor. Neither the Supreme Court nor the 

President can save us. We are our own physician here. Now, if we 

do not act, I am confident that the public will. 

When you ask Democratic and Republican leaders how to fix the 

institution, their answer is always the same: ‘‘Elect more Democrats’’ or ‘‘Elect more Republicans.’’ I wish the answer were that 

simple. Unfortunately, neither political party has been doing a good 

job. Neither party is willing to compromise for the good of the Nation. Both parties, as we all know, pander to the base and do all 

they can to blame the other. Meanwhile the Nation suffers. 

My favorite nonpartisan group, No Labels, has offered a package 

of 12 reforms, and I am going to speak on the No Budget, No Pay 

reform, but a number of these reforms deserve attention, and I appreciate this Committee taking out time to focus on these. 

My colleague, Senator Isakson, mentioned biennial budgeting, as 

did Senator Collins. I think that is a great idea. I support it. But 

I am worried that without the No Budget, No Pay Act, instead of 

Congress missing its annual deadline, it would just miss its deadline every other year. We still need an enforcement mechanism. 

As we all know, Congress has missed so many budget and appropriations deadlines now that really no one takes them seriously. 

We have run government too long by continuing resolution instead 

of annual appropriations. We have run government almost on a 

month-to-month, sometimes a week-by-week basis. That is no way 

to run a superpower. That is inexcusable. 

Essentially, we have lost ‘‘one Nation, under God, indivisible,’’ 

and we have gained ‘‘one nation, yet again, interrupted.’’ I am 

afraid that our start/stop government is giving everybody whiplash. 

America is the victim. And Congress is simply not able to get away 

with this reckless driving anymore. 

We heard the warning last summer from Standard & Poor’s 

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12 

tory, and they warned us it is not just due to our budget deficits, 

it is due to our political bickering. The ratings outlook is still negative, and we could face yet another downgrade unless we behave 

quickly. 

Mr. Chairman, I wish that we could legislate civility and wisdom 

in this body. Unfortunately, as you know, that is impossible. But 

we can, at a minimum, force ourselves to meet our most basic financial deadlines. That is what No Budget, No Pay is all about, 

and we have to admit, most congressional activity is difficult to 

measure. But our duty to meet key financial deadlines is clear, 

achievable, and enforceable. 

The idea of deadlines to me came from a constituent in Nashville, Tennessee. He was completely fed up with Congress and 

asked me why Congress was so shameless in repeatedly missing 

our deadlines. He wondered why the members of the public had to 

pay their taxes on time when we do not pay the Nation’s bills on 

time. I did not have a good answer for the gentleman. Congress 

must come up with a good answer this year. 

No principle is more basic to American values than no work, no 

pay. The saying in Tennessee, often mentioned by a beloved former 

governor of ours, is, ‘‘If you don’t want to work, you ought not to 

hire out.’’ People get it. And it is time that Congress gets it, because the public expects Congress to lead by example. If we shirk 

our duties, we should not get paid. No budget, no pay. No appropriations bills, no pay. 

Now, it is obvious that the No Budget, No Pay Act is not popular 

with all of our colleagues, although we do have a growing list of 

several dozen co-sponsors in the House. Some concerns about the 

bill are certainly legitimate, but most of our colleagues are simply 

running out of excuses for why Congress is chronically late and irresponsible 

In a normal year, we have to admit, reform efforts like the No 

Budget, No Pay Act would not have a chance of becoming law. It 

would have a zero chance of passage. But I think this year is different. Instead of business as usual winning as usual, I think that 

the public is so tired of our blame games, we are going to act. Congress has not been this unpopular since polling was invented. 

I am confident that those of us who revere Congress as an institution love it enough to tell it the truth, even when that truth is 

painful to hear. I am confident that in this election year, many of 

our colleagues will see that the real choice is between reform or defeat, and I think they will choose reform. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Congressman 

Cooper, for that statement. I thank both of you. I know, again, you 

have very busy schedules. 

We have a second panel which will testify on No Budget, No Pay, 

also on the broader No Labels platform of proposals, and we will 

have questions for them. But thanks for your leadership, thanks for 

your statements, thanks for your time. We wish you a good day. 

Now we will call the second panel: Tom Davis, co-founder of No 

Labels and currently the Director of Federal Government Affairs at 

Deloitte and Touche; William A. Galston, co-founder, No Labels, 

and senior fellow, Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution; 

13 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Davis appears in the Appendix on page 46. 

and Donald Wolfensberger, Director of the Congress Project at the 

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 

I thank all of you for being here. We will give our Members a 

moment to depart from the room. 

Congressman Davis, apparently the rules of seniority go even 

after you leave Congress, even though Bill Galston looks so much 

older than you. [Laughter.] 

Congressman, it is great to welcome you back. It was a real 

pleasure to work with you when you were here, and I appreciate 

very much your continuing interest in matters of public policy, including particularly through the No Labels group. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. THOMAS M. DAVIS,1 CO-FOUNDER, NO LABELS; DIRECTOR, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, 

DELOITTE AND TOUCHE LLP 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, thank you, Chairman Lieberman. Senator Collins, thank you for being here. We worked together on a number 

of issues when I was in the House, and it is good to see Senator 

Coburn and Senator Johnson here as well. 

I really appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and I ask 

that my entire statement be part of the record. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Without objection. 

Mr. DAVIS. And I am happy to be part of the discussion today. 

First of all, I want to start by congratulating this Committee on 

several reform accomplishments that you have already completed. 

Last June, S. 679, sponsored by the two of you, cleared the Senate 

floor. Your bill took about 300 positions that currently require Senate confirmation, and either took confirmation away or expedited 

the procedures, allowing presidential appointees to be able to get 

to their places on time and start work. And I am going to talk a 

little bit more about that, but you have already moved on this. 

Second, you have worked to establish a working group to simplify 

the paperwork requirements for Federal appointees so that the vetting process can proceed more expeditiously and these appointments can get into place quicker, particularly with new administrations. 

And finally, and I think most importantly, you have established 

a bipartisan mantra for this Committee, something you do not see 

throughout the Congress. The two of you working together, in your 

seating, you have set, I think, a tone for Members working together. Those are the kinds of things I think the public wants to 

see, and so you are doing your part already to bring this about. 

This is not a Committee where you walk in with a red jersey or 

a blue jersey, and as I said, even your seating shows that. 

But you are bucking some macro trends that we see growing politically that tend to heighten and reward partisanship and brinkmanship and punish compromise. We have seen just from the National Journal’s ratings an ideological sorting of the parties now 

where the most liberal Republican votes more conservative than 

the most conservative Democrat, and this is reinforced in the 

House by the way Congressional Districts are drawn. Now it is 

generally either a blue district or a red district. 

14 

In 2010, you had the largest midterm turnover since 1938, and 

yet as you approached election day, less than a quarter of the 

House seats were really in play. That means most Members look 

to their primaries as their major race, and primaries do not reward 

bipartisanship. They tend to punish bipartisanship. They tend to 

reward ideology. 

Also reinforcing this is the fact that news media models now crop 

up and just thrive on polarization. Their financial models call for 

this kind of thing. We call it ‘‘cognitive dissonance’’ in psychology. 

And on the Internet, with no filters, you are getting the same kind 

of polarization. 

Finally, I would just add, on a macro trend, the way campaigns 

are financed today. Parties have been starved for dollars and soft 

dollars have been taken away from parties. This money has moved 

elsewhere into the political sphere, and not to centering groups like 

political parties but out to interest groups, which tend to be much 

more ideological. 

So these are macro trends that have affected the way Congress 

does its business, and you are trying to deal here with changing 

some rules. The end result of all this is we are turning into a parliamentary electoral system, as Congressman Cooper noted, in a 

balance-of-powers government. And it has not become a very good 

fit. It is an electoral model that our Founders rejected, but it is just 

what has evolved. 

So I want to address just three issues today that I think would 

add to the discussion. 

The first is that today presidential appointments are routinely 

held up for oftentimes trivial and unrelated reasons. Presidential 

appointees become collateral damage as part of larger issues. Advise and Consent is often turned into Delay and Obstruct, and this 

has discouraged qualified people from entering government service 

and people getting to government service on time, particularly for 

new administrations. 

Our solution is pretty simple. Presidential nominations in the 

Executive Branch would receive up-or-down votes within 90 days. 

It could still be 60 votes. You could keep that threshold. But at 

least they would get some certainty, and not left dangling out there 

after they have severed their business ties, given up their stock options to wait in turn to try to enter government service. 

The second proposal deals with the filibuster. No one wants to 

do away with the filibuster, but maybe just making the filibuster 

a filibuster would help. In the first 50 years of the filibuster, when 

a two-thirds vote was required, it was used only 35 times, and that 

was when, as I said, two-thirds was needed to invoke cloture. In 

the last 2 years alone—and this has been with both parties—it was 

used over 100 times, and Senators do not even have to show up on 

the floor now to explain themselves. They just signal their intent 

to filibuster, and it effectively stalls legislation. The upshot is that 

even routine legislation has to clear 60 votes, and constant filibustering also gums up the Senate calendar. 

Look, I recognize that the filibuster is a powerful tool and empowers the minority to force consensus on complex issues. But the 

No Labels filibuster fix and what I suggest today, if Senators want 

to filibuster, just show up. Go through it. Make them stand up and 

15 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Galston with attachments appears in the Appendix on page 

50. 

talk through that time. Do not just file a vote. They can go through 

this, and I think that would be a discouraging factor. 

And, finally, another idea that as Washington debates finds, we 

often deal with different facts. What we want to put forward is that 

every year our nonpartisan leaders, like the Comptroller General, 

would come up before Congress and deliver a televised address, 

where we could at least agree on the facts. Today so often in the 

political sphere, we are not even reading from the same set of facts. 

Everybody has their own facts. Being able to do that to a joint session, televised, would set, I think, a groundwork where, despite our 

philosophical disagreements and partisan disagreements, we would 

at least be reading off the same set of facts. 

So, again, I appreciate being part of the discussion today, and 

thank you both for holding this hearing. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Congressman Davis. Thanks 

for those three very thoughtful proposals, which really ought to be 

adopted. 

I take liberties with Mr. Galston because I have known him so 

long, and without belaboring the point, I have great respect for 

him, but also because he spent his formative years in Connecticut, 

he brings to the table the spirit of Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth. 

Mr. GALSTON. And other more roguish characters. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I was leaving that out. [Laughter.] 

If anybody in the room is interested, see me later. Welcome Mr. 

Galston. 

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM A. GALSTON,1 CO-FOUNDER, NO 

LABELS; SENIOR FELLOW, GOVERNANCE STUDIES, THE 

BROOKINGS INSTITUTION 

Mr. GALSTON. Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, and Members of the Committee, I am William Galston, a senior fellow in 

Governance Studies at Brookings and one of the co-founders of No 

Labels. I want to join the other witnesses in thanking you for holding this hearing, and on a more personal note, I am honored by 

this invitation and am grateful for this opportunity to present my 

views on congressional reform. I will summarize my written remarks, but I would respectfully submit them, along with supplementary materials, for the record. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. GALSTON. I begin with a brief description of No Labels. We 

are a classic American grassroots organization—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents united in the determination to make our 

country better. We began 15 months ago with a meeting that 1,000 

citizens representing all 50 States attended at their own expense. 

Since then, our membership has grown to nearly half a million. We 

have bipartisan teams of citizen leaders in every State and in all 

435 congressional districts. 

Our mission can be stated in a single sentence: We want to help 

move our country from the old politics of point scoring toward a 

new politics of problem solving. And I know that this goal is widely 

16 

shared in this room by the Members of the Committee, and we are 

grateful for that. 

A number of No Labels members are here today. As I think you 

can see, they are not carrying torches and pitchforks. They are 

worried but not angry, disappointed but still hopeful. They want a 

government that makes progress on the country’s real problems. 

They are not from Washington—and they are here to help. [Laughter.] 

No Labels is a movement that meets a distinctive moment in our 

Nation’s history. Political scientists have confirmed what pundits, 

elected officials, and citizens have long suspected: Our party system is more divided than it used to be; indeed, to judge by voting 

patterns, more deeply divided than at any time since the 1890s. 

This has had consequences for the ability of government at every 

level—but especially at the national level—to reach agreement 

even on routine matters, let alone on the challenges that require 

our system to break new ground. 

Robust debate on fundamentals is, of course, the life blood of a 

healthy democracy, but not if that debate yields mostly gridlock 

and recriminations. In the eyes of most citizens, regrettably, that 

is what has happened. 

Now, while some citizens may have lost confidence in the Members of Congress as individuals, No Labels has not. We believe that 

our Senators and Representatives came to Washington to promote 

the common defense and general welfare and that they are as frustrated as anybody by the obstacles that they have encountered. In 

our view, our elected representatives are public-spirited individuals 

trapped in an increasingly obsolete and dysfunctional system of 

congressional rules and procedures designed for a very different 

era. The correct response, No Labels believes, is to fix the system. 

Just last week, one of your colleagues, Senator Olympia Snowe, 

stunned the political world by announcing that she would not seek 

a fourth term. She described a Senate that was no longer capable 

of finding common ground, and in an op-ed in the Washington Post, 

she said: 

‘‘I do not believe that, in the near term, the Senate can correct 

itself from within. It is by nature a political entity and, therefore, 

there must be a benefit to working across the aisle.’’ That benefit 

can come, she believes, only if the American people raise their 

voices and demonstrate their desire for a less polarized, more problem-solving brand of politics. And that is precisely what No Labels 

seeks to do. 

Our focus this year, as you know, is congressional reform. Our 

12-item agenda is summarized in the booklet, ‘‘Make Congress 

Work.’’ Its title expresses the judgment that an overwhelming majority of the American people has reached. These 12 recommendations collectively address three central elements of congressional 

dysfunction: Hyper-polarization, gridlock, and, as has already been 

noted, the dwindling of productive discourse across party lines. 

Now, it is fair to ask: If congressional polarization reflects divisions in the country, how can procedural reforms make a difference? And here is the answer: Although the American people 

themselves are more divided than they used to be, they are much 

less divided than are the political parties that purport to represent 

17 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Wolfensberger appears in the Appendix on page 53. 

them. This helps explain why so many citizens feel unrepresented 

and left out, and it suggests that by allowing their sentiments to 

find fuller expression, procedural reforms could help reduce polarization. 

Our Founding Fathers established a representative system. They 

did not believe in government by plebiscite, and neither does No 

Labels. Nonetheless, the sentiments of the people are hardly irrelevant. An independent poll we commissioned after shaping our congressional reform agenda found that every one of the 12 items enjoys super-majority support. The least popular proposal is supported by 74 percent of the people; the most popular, which happens to be No Budget, No Pay, by 88 percent. These finding suggest that there is a large untapped demand for congressional reforms—especially when the people can understand them and believe that they would make a difference. 

In short, we are at one of those junctures in American history 

when good government and good politics coincide. For your sake 

and for the country’s, we urge you to seize this moment—by moving to a markup for the No Budget, No Pay Act and by giving serious attention to a broader range of congressional reforms. 

Thank you very much for your attention. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Galston, for a 

characteristically thoughtful statement, and I look forward to the 

question-and-answer period. 

The final witness on this panel is Don Wolfensberger, who is a 

widely respected expert on Congress and our government, and 

comes to us today as Director of the Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Thanks for being 

here, and please proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF DONALD R. WOLFENSBERGER,1 DIRECTOR, 

CONGRESS PROJECT, WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL 

CENTER FOR SCHOLARS 

Mr. WOLFENSBERGER. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman. And 

thank you Senator Collins—by the way, best wishes on your engagement. 

It is a pleasure to be here today, and Members of the Committee, 

to see you, and to testify on what is wrong with Congress and what 

might be done to improve its performance and its image. 

I have been involved in congressional reform efforts for nearly a 

half-century now—I was just adding up, about 43 years, 28 on the 

Hill, 15 down at the Wilson Center—both working directly on reform efforts and studying the Congress and writing about it. And 

one of the observations I bring to the table as a result of all this 

work that I have done is that no matter how much Congress tries 

to reform itself, it eventually finds itself back in the same trough 

of public disfavor. 

Very rarely does Congress enjoy overwhelming public support or 

confidence. It is a very convenient whipping post for all manner of 

national problems, some things it is responsible for, some things it 

is not. And I indicate in my testimony that while I do not think 

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18 

tution, I, nevertheless, think that going through a reform process 

periodically is good for the institution. As I mention in my statement, it is like the proverbial 2-by-4 upside the head of a mule. It 

gets Members’ attention and forces them to consider behaving better institutionally and working harder to achieve some constructive 

things for the Nation. 

And I warn against making any bold, brash, ill-considered reforms because they can have very adverse consequences for the institution. They would make things worse. The Germans have a 

word for this: ‘‘schlimmbesserung’’—an improvement that makes 

things worse. We call it ‘‘a reform that goes bad.’’ 

I have provided 10 guiding objectives for use in shaping any reforms and 10 things to avoid. Among the things that you should 

want are ending gridlock, ending bitter partisanship and incivility, 

strengthening the Legislative Branch vis-a-vis the Executive 

Branch, better balancing committee powers with party leadership 

powers, addressing real problems and not just politically appealing 

issues, enhancing Congress’ oversight role, and better informing 

the people about the activities of their government. 

I will not repeat the 10 things that I tell you to avoid. Many of 

these are mirror images of the 10 positive objectives, but I will 

mention just two: First of all, do not punish the Congress for its 

failings; and, second, do not diminish further the public’s respect 

for Congress by belittling it. How many Members of Congress do 

we know that run for Congress by running against it and then, 

when they get here, wonder why the people are down on it? 

Finally, I would mention four things that I think can help improve things in some of the areas that we are concerned with. 

First and foremost, restore the regular order in committees and 

on the floor. You do not need a whole new set of rules. Just adhere 

to those that exist, and I think you will go a long way to restoring 

comity, deliberation, and fairness. 

Second, restore conference committees between the House and 

Senate, and thereby eliminate what I call ‘‘leadership ping-pong 

matches’’—that is, batting amendments back and forth between the 

Houses. Let committees and their members do this work. Leadership is not good at it. They have neither the time, the inclination, 

nor the expertise to be good legislators. 

Third, focus on doing your principal job right, and to this I commend No Labels and Mr. Galston for bringing this to people’s attention, and that is, managing the purse strings. Here I think leadership should lead in making sure that budget resolutions and appropriations bills are all passed on time. 

I recommend in my testimony going with a biennial budget resolution with binding 2-year spending ceilings that would be spun off 

into law, similar to what we had last year with the Budget Control 

Act, while retaining the annual appropriations process as a means 

to maintain control and scrutiny of the Executive Branch. 

Finally, I recommend disentangling campaigning from the legislative process. The perpetual campaign is polluting what was once 

a culture of lawmaking. I particularly single out in my statement 

leadership political action commitees (PACs) as driving too many 

important decisions within the Congress, such as how committee 

and subcommittee chairs are chosen in the House. You must find 

19 

ways to de-escalate what I call ‘‘the money chase’’ in Congress and 

turn that money machine under the dome back into a lawmaking 

machine. 

I will be happy to elaborate on any of these or any of the other 

proposals that have been brought up today, and with that, I thank 

you again for your attention and for inviting me here. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

We will go to questions from the Committee Members, and let us 

do 6-minute rounds so we make sure everybody gets an opportunity. 

I have been over this document, ‘‘Make Congress Work.’’ I think 

it is really an excellent document, and I want to note for the record 

what Mr. Galston has said. This No Labels group, in my opinion, 

is a genuinely grassroots movement. It is obviously started by leaders; otherwise, it would not take shape. But the growth that it has 

shown over the relatively short time it has been in existence is another message to us. And I think this is a series of very constructive proposals. 

I would guess, most Members of Congress would say, ‘‘That is a 

good idea.’’ Some of them, a couple, would probably have a hard 

time going beyond, ‘‘That is a good idea,’’ such as not campaigning 

against colleagues from another party, because both party committees pressure Members to campaign against colleagues, which is a 

terrible and destructive idea. But I want to begin my questioning 

by going right to No Budget, No Pay because that is—as you have 

indicated in the polling you have done—the most popular of the 12 

No Labels proposals. You will not be surprised to hear, not as a result of a socially scientific poll but an informal random poll of 

Members of Congress, it is the least popular of the 12 proposals 

among Members of Congress. 

But to be fair about it, I want to ask you—and, in fact, people 

have said to me, ‘‘I cannot believe you are holding a hearing on 

this.’’ Well, as I said before, I view it as a legislative scream, which 

I mean it is a shout for attention. And to use Mr. Wolfensberger’s 

metaphor, a classic one, it is a 2-by-4 to get attention, in this case, 

may I say, not only of the recalcitrant mule but of the recalcitrant 

elephant as well. 

But let me ask this question, and these are the critical questions, 

that is, the questions that are negative. So it makes you feel good 

if Members of Congress do not get paid unless they adopt a budget, 

but is that really the problem? Isn’t the problem, to some extent— 

all of you and we have said—this decline in bipartisanship, increase in ideological rigidity, the kind of macro issues Congressman 

Davis talked about? Or isn’t the problem the budget process, which 

clearly does not work? So why adopt No Budget, No Pay? Maybe 

I will start with you, Mr. Galston, and then go to Mr. Davis. 

Mr. GALSTON. Well, let me begin by stating the problem as I see 

it. In 1974, the Congress adopted a very good Budget Act, and I 

am not surprised to hear that it had a Maine provenance. We 

would be in a much better place if the Congress of the United 

States were able to adhere to the terms of that Act. It not only prescribes a series of steps, as everybody knows; it also prescribes a 

timetable. 

20 

It has been more than 15 years, since 1996, that the Congress 

of the United States actually complied with that timetable. And 

you have heard a description, which I am sure is very familiar to 

all of you, as to what usually ensues to replace that timetable—an 

endless series of continuing resolutions, stop-and-go budgeting, etc. 

Speaking for a minute as a political scientist, it is hard for me 

to resist the conclusion that the incentives pulling against complying with the 1974 act are a lot stronger than the incentives pulling in favor of complying with the Act. And that leads to a classic 

Madisonian question: If men, and even women, are not angels, how 

do you arrange institutions and procedures to make it more likely 

that compliance with rules and institutional norms will, in fact, 

come to pass? 

We have put forward the No Budget, No Pay Act as one way, we 

believe a powerful tool, for changing the incentives that individual 

Members feel and the institution as a whole feels. We would not 

be disappointed if men and women of good will on both sides of the 

aisle who are not in the leadership felt impelled to put more pressure on their leadership than they now do in order to induce a 

more reasonable agenda and a more timely agenda for the fulfillment of what Mr. Wolfensberger quite properly called ‘‘the most 

basic function of our government.’’ 

But let me make it clear. We are not here to end a conversation. 

We are here to begin a conversation. If there is a better way of 

doing this, the citizens of the United States are eager to hear it. 

But let me tell you what they are not eager to hear. They are not 

eager to hear that some cultural transformation of this institution, 

a new spirit of good will and comity, will break out all by itself. 

I think people are beyond believing that that is going to happen. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well said. 

Mr. Davis, let me ask you to focus on the other criticism of the 

No Budget, No Pay Act, which I am sure you have heard, simplistically speaking, it imposes a system of collective guilt, and people 

in Congress who are wealthier could get along without pay, people 

who are not will suffer from it; the ones who suffer from it may 

not be the cause of the problem, or at least not fully. 

Mr. DAVIS. It would probably have more effect in the House 

where the Members are not as wealthy as in the Senate, if you look 

at the facts. [Laughter.] 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I am so glad I gave you the opportunity 

to say that. [Laughter.] 

Mr. DAVIS. But I am in the private sector now, so I can take a 

different view. 

Just a couple things. What people want are results. It has been 

back in 1996 the last time that we passed the budgets on time, and 

that was following two government shutdowns in 1995. So there 

was at that point an incentive. Just keeping the lights on through 

continuing resolutions (CRs) means innovation does not start. Middle-level managers are afraid to do anything until they know what 

their budget is going to be for the year. And the year before last, 

it was May before we received the appropriations done for an October 1 start time. 

What people want are results, and I agree with Mr. Galston, if 

you can find a better way to do it, do it. But this is untenable. 

21 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks. My time is up. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to take up the challenge of a better way to accomplish the 

goal. I mentioned two in my opening statement. A third is an idea 

that actually the bipartisan Gang of Six came up with, and I am 

going to propose to you a variation of it, and that is, to empower 

a small group of bipartisan Senators to force consideration of the 

budget under the rules. A budget resolution could be introduced by 

at least three Senators from each side of the aisle, and we could 

change the process so that it would automatically be put on the calendar for floor consideration if the Budget Committee fails to report a budget by April 1, 2012. 

In other words, instead of putting up with the dysfunctional process we have now, which is completely dependent on the Budget 

Committee acting and the leadership acting, why not empower a 

bipartisan group—so six Senators, three from each side of the 

aisle—to be empowered to bring forth a budget resolution if the 

leadership fails to do so and make it a privilege motion? I mean, 

there are all sorts of ways to ensure its consideration. It seems to 

me that would accomplish the goal of either forcing the Budget 

Committee and the leadership to act, or you have this alternative 

budget on the floor and it has to be bipartisan. 

So I would like each of you to quickly comment on that idea so 

I can get to a second one also. 

Mr. DAVIS. How would it work in the House? The House is a different animal and, as you know, much more partisan in terms of 

the way it operates on that. I just throw that out. So the Senate 

may be handled, but we have tried super committees and other 

things. They have not seemed to be able to work. 

What is clear is the current system is not working, Senator Collins, so that is my comment. It may work, something different, 

where you can have some independently empowered Members. But 

let us just look at these macro trends, bucking your party on this, 

and it takes, I think, some Members who have some courage to do 

that. 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Galston. 

Mr. GALSTON. Off the top of my head, it sounds like one promising way of promoting timely consideration of the budget resolution. That leaves the problem of the 12 appropriations bills to be 

dealt with, and the inability of Congress to complete those before 

the beginning of the next fiscal year is perhaps the more fundamental problem that the No Budget, No Pay Act addresses. 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Wolfensberger. 

Mr. WOLFENSBERGER. Yes, I am not as familiar with the Senate 

as the House, though I know that a few people can get a lot done 

over here in the Senate, and I think it is still a matter, though, 

of finding a way to work with leadership to try and get something 

on the floor. I agree with you that it is very frustrating. 

If I could go back to the question, though, on No Budget, No Pay, 

I think it is a great 2-by-4, but I disagree with it. And I do so because I think it goes against the first of my no-no’s on what you 

should be doing in congressional reform, and that is, this humiliates, it demeans, it diminishes the Congress. It makes it sound as 

if Congress is not working because it has not completed all of its 

22 

1The witnesses’ responses to Senator Collins questions for the Record appear in the Appendix 

on page 93–97. 

work on time. The fact is Congress is still working very hard at a 

lot of things, not just trying to get the budget process finished but 

other things as well. And so I think to dock Members’ pay—because 

the leaders on appropriations or the party have not been able to 

move things forward in a timely way is very unfair. 

But let us assume that it is, in effect, No Budget, No Pay. I will 

give you three scenarios which would really be bad. 

First of all, let us say that you have no budget resolution this 

year. Senator Harry Reid does not want one. The House may well 

adopt one. Let us say the House does. Let us say that all 12 appropriations bills are still enacted. They can go forward on May 15, 

even if you do not have a budget resolution. Let us say they are 

all enacted by September 1. If Senator Reid sticks by his guns, you 

are going to dock every Member’s pay for the rest of this year because they have not gotten a budget resolution. 

Scenario two, let us say a budget resolution is adopted by April 

15. Let us say by September 30, the last three appropriations bills 

are sent to the President, the other nine have already been signed 

into law, and the President vetoes those. For every day then that 

the Congress does not get a new set of bills up, it is going to be 

docked its pay because the President has vetoed the bills. 

Last, the House passes a budget resolution by April 15. It passes 

all 12 appropriations bills before the August recess, but only three 

bills clear the Senate. The House has passed all of them, and they 

are signed by the President, the three bills. But the House is going 

to be punished for having done its work even though the Senate 

has not been able to get the other nine bills to the President on 

time. 

So those are, I think, practical ways in which you are going to 

have some difficulty with this proposal. I do think that it is great 

that the issue has been raised. I think there are ways, though, to 

get the leadership in the appropriations committees to do a much 

better job, both on budget resolutions and on appropriations. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. I would point out that the House 

did pass a budget resolution. The problem has been much more on 

the Senate side, which is why I think the proposal I advanced 

might work. 

My time has expired, so I am not going to be able to go on to 

my other questions. Let me just say one sentence, and that is, No. 

8 on the No Labels list calls on Members to take no pledge but the 

Oath of Office and the Pledge of Allegiance. I happen to follow that 

rule. I am one of very few Republicans who did not sign the Grover 

Norquist pledge, for example. But I have to say I think that raises 

real First Amendment questions, and that is something I am going 

to submit for the record.1

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins. Senator Brown. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BROWN 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you adjusting a little bit. I am actually the Ranking Member on the VetVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:26 Sep 24, 2012 Jkt 073685 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\73685.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
23 

erans’ Affairs Committee. I will be leaving right after this. But I 

did want to come and participate. I know there are folks here from 

Massachusetts, so thank you for taking the time to come. 

I know, Mr. Galston, we met and I enjoyed our meeting very 

much. I will just convey some of the things that I conveyed to you. 

I want a budget. I have been asking for it since I got here. I have 

only been here about 2 years now, and you are talking to two of 

the most bipartisan Senators in the entire Senate. I vote with my 

party 54 percent of the time. And, Congressman, you said we need 

a better way to do it. Sure, the better way to do it is just to read 

the bills, understand them, see how they affect your State, your 

country, your debt, and your deficit, and you vote regardless of 

party, regardless of special interest, as we do. And I encourage my 

party and Members of the opposite party to do the same thing. I 

mean, that is the easy answer, to just step back and be Americans 

first and do what is important, because we are in trouble right now 

and we need to work together. 

The things that we have done, Mr. Wolfensberger, I appreciate 

your referencing that, we are working. Three of us have spent 600 

hours trying to save the post office, and so we are trying to do 

things in a truly bipartisan manner. And this Committee is evidence of that bipartisanship and the fact that we do that on a daily 

basis. 

I do appreciate your efforts, some of the things you are working 

on, and I have been doing since I got in my elective office. So I am 

glad that you are moving forward with that. 

I had a question for the Congressman and for Mr. Galston, if I 

could. As you know, since I came to Washington, as I said, I look 

at every bill and I vote yes or no on the merits. I do not care if 

it is the bill of a Democrat or Republican, from North, South, East, 

or West, it really does not matter. If we all just had the courage 

of our convictions rather than following the leader of our party, 

think how much we could do. Isn’t that the meaning of No Labels? 

Isn’t that what you are trying to convey as the stuff that Senator 

Collins and I and others are trying to do up here? 

Mr. DAVIS. Senator, that is exactly what No Labels referred to, 

is you park your party. Elections are for elections, and after the 

elections, act like grownups and work together to try to solve the 

country’s problems. 

I was fortunate to be from a very swing district where I was not 

punished in a primary when I went against my party, and you are 

from a State where you probably get the same thing. But a lot of 

these Members, as I noted in my opening remarks, are from very 

safe seats and their races are their primary. And we have seen in 

some recent elections where Members who buck the party get held 

accountable. So the incentives are get through your primary elections and keep that red shirt or blue shirt on. And that is a macro 

problem, reinforced by the media and the way campaigns are financed that make it harder. 

Senator BROWN. Do you have any comments at all, Mr. Galston, 

on that? Isn’t that the intent of what you are trying to do? 

Mr. GALSTON. I do not think that any member of No Labels, including the two who happen to be seated at this podium, could 

summarize it any better. That is absolutely what we intend to do. 

24 

Senator BROWN. Great. Well, thank you. 

Mr. Wolfensberger, I agree that the gridlock in Congress is, as 

I have said, disgusting at times, that is my phraseology. As someone who has worked on several major bipartisan congressional reforms, most recently the insider trading bill, my bill that passed 

96–3. I encouraged the Majority Leader to do just that, and we 

have been waiting for those types of good government initiatives to 

hopefully partially re-establish trust with the American people. 

What do you think the biggest hindrance is in bringing the parties together? And what created bipartisanship in the past? And 

what can be done to restore it now, do you think? 

Mr. WOLFENSBERGER. That is something I am still studying quite 

a bit. [Laughter.] 

Senator BROWN. I think we all are. 

Mr. WOLFENSBERGER. But, no, the turn to a more partisan Congress, I trace it back really to the late 1960s, mid-1970s, when 

there was a great deal of criticisms that the parties stood for nothing. Political scientists were part of this, too. The parties should 

stand for something. And now we have gotten to the point where 

they are standing at either pole and not really talking to each 

other or getting together on much. So perhaps they stand for too 

much and do not really act on enough. I do not know. 

But how you get back is the thing that I have been trying to 

wrestle with, is how you re-establish more of a bipartisan atmosphere on things where the parties should be able to find common 

ground. I cannot believe that we cannot find common ground on a 

highway bill, on an education bill, or on an energy bill. There have 

to be ways that they can get together on things where there is not 

a clear ideological thing but there is something called ‘‘the good of 

the country’’ that overrides any considerations of party or ideology. 

But it is a work in progress for me. 

Senator BROWN. It is interesting. I believe you are right on that. 

I mean, the hire-a-hero veterans bill, the 3-percent withholding, 

the most recent insider trading bill, things that I spearheaded and 

we are pushing through, essentially passed 100–0. I agree. We can 

find that common ground. And I am a little bit concerned also 

about the nomination process, the advice and consent that I take 

great interest in and I consider it one of the most important duties 

that I have. 

This would be to Congressman Davis. Can you explain any other 

ideas you have to make that process go a bit more smoothly? 

Mr. DAVIS. The nomination process? Again, I think if you set a 

limit on these where they get an up-or-down vote after a given period of time; 90 days is what we suggest for vetting. I think you 

could still require 60 votes, but at least at that point you get a 

vote. Many of these nominations are just dangling out there. 

Senator BROWN. Yes, well, I know Senators Lieberman and Collins have actually spearheaded—— 

Mr. DAVIS. Exactly. 

Senator BROWN. And I think many of us are up here were cosponsors, and it would eliminate a lot of those. Part of the problem 

is actually just the process itself, how it starts. You have so many 

different agencies. The applications are different. They do not have 

enough investigators to investigate the backgrounds and do the 

25 

1The graph submitted by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 57. 

background checks. We have actually pushed for legislation to 

allow for a certain amount of appointees to actually not be in that 

same category. I think that is a great first step, and I want to commend Senator Collins and the Chairman for doing that. 

I am listening. Like I said, I think I am trying to lead by example, and I think that is really the key. We just need to do our jobs. 

I have to get back downstairs, Mr. Chairman, but I will try to 

come back. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Brown, for 

coming back. Senator Johnson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON 

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 

hearing. It is an important one, and I guess I bring a slightly different perspective to the table here. I did not run for the U.S. Senate because I wanted to be a U.S. Senator. I ran because we are 

bankrupting this Nation, and to respectfully disagree, I think the 

American people want results, but also what they want is some fiscal discipline here. They also realize that we are bankrupting this 

Nation. 

My background is in manufacturing, and you have a problem, 

you have to identify the root cause. If you have an engine leaking 

oil, I mean, you can keep adding oil. But you are better off changing the gasket. And our problem is not that Congress has not done 

too much. Our problem is Congress has done way too much with 

very little thought on how we are going to pay for it. 

A number of people have mentioned our Founding Fathers. I 

think America has really forgotten what our Founding Fathers 

knew, that, sure, we needed government, but that, by and large, 

government was something to fear because they understood that as 

government grew, our freedoms receded. 

And so they set about to try and set up a system of government 

to limit the growth of government, and to me that is the root cause. 

The root cause of what is ailing this Nation, the root cause of what 

is bankrupting this Nation, is the size, the scope, all the rules, all 

the regulations, all the intrusion into our lives, and the resulting 

costs to government. 

One of your reforms is filibuster reform. I have a graph here.1

It was interesting. When I came here, I started reading about the 

history of the filibuster and, of course, somebody mentioned that 

initially when it was instituted to bring cloture to debate, it was 

a two-thirds limit. And so I asked, it would be interesting to graph. 

As we made it easier for government to grow, what happened to 

government? Well, it went from 2 percent, 2 cents of every dollar 

filtering through government. And now we are up to about 24.5 

percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and we are on a trajectory 

to hit almost 35 percent by the year 2035. So we have made it easier for government to grow, particularly in 1975 when we lowered 

that filibuster threshold to only three-fifths. 

Now, it took 30-some years for one party to gain that super-majority control, and what happened? We went from about 20 percent 

26 

of GDP of government to about 24 in 2009, and, again, you can see 

the trajectory. 

Do you agree with that root cause, that it is the size of government, first and foremost, that is more important than if are we getting along here in Congress? 

Mr. DAVIS. Senator, I will start. As a former House Member, I 

think we are an airplane flying into a mountain, and you want to 

steer it here or there, but it is unsustainable borrowing 40 cents 

on the dollar. I agree with you. 

Senator JOHNSON. Would it be better off if we actually instituted 

some real fiscal controls here? I have always thought this was a 

two-step process. What would be wrong with a constitutional 

amendment to limit the size of government to a certain percentage 

of GDP? Wouldn’t that provide the fiscal control the American people are really looking for? What would be wrong with that? 

Mr. DAVIS. We have tried that. When Senator Coburn and I were 

in the House, we passed constitutional amendments on balanced 

budgets and the like, and they could get through the House, but 

they could never get through over in this body. 

Senator JOHNSON. How about if we put everything on budget? In 

the 1960s, about 68 percent of every budget dollar was appropriated. It was subject to some level of control. Last year, only 38 

percent was actually appropriated, and in 10 years that will only 

be 25 percent. So 75 percent of our budget in 10 years will be totally off budget, not appropriated, out of control. How about if we 

put everything on budget? Why don’t you propose that? And, oh, by 

the way, when we put the entitlements back on budget, why don’t 

we put a requirement for a 75-year solvency requirement for those 

entitlements? Mr. Galston, would that be a good idea? 

Mr. GALSTON. No Labels has chosen to begin with process reforms. Let me put on a different hat that I also wear. I am a member of a clandestine, bipartisan fiscal sustainability conspiracy that 

includes representatives from far right to considerably to the left 

of me. We actually put out a proposal called ‘‘Taking Back Our Fiscal Future,’’ which tried to create a 5-year budget for those portions 

of the budget that you are referring to that are not now part of the 

annual budget process. 

When Alice Rivlin was here a few weeks ago to testify before 

Congress, she made exactly the same point, that when the 1974 act 

was adopted, the percentage of the budget represented by discretionary spending and, therefore, the annual appropriations process 

was much more than 50 percent, now it is way less than 50 percent, that is a serious problem. And in another venue, I would be 

happy to discuss it in as much length as you have time for. 

Senator JOHNSON. Let us talk about process control. From my 

standpoint, I am new here, never been involved in politics. I come 

from a business background with accounting. We do need a good 

process because in the manufacturing process, if you do not have 

a good process, you have an awful product, and that is our problem. 

Everything here in Washington is additive. What is a new piece 

of legislation? Let us slap it on the books here. Let us do it quick. 

How about if we institutionalized a process of subtraction? How 

about a sunset committee? That is one of the things I am working 

on, a joint sunset committee whose only mandate is to look at the 

27 

Federal Government, let us take a look at the laws, rules, and regulations that do more harm than good, and let us remove those. 

Let us start figuring out a way we can reduce government’s intrusion in our lives. What would you think about that proposal? 

Mr. GALSTON. It is sometimes said that the only true example of 

immortality is a Federal program, and there is clearly a problem 

that a lot of obsolete programs that were good for their time but 

are good no longer linger out of habit or because they have gathered some political barnacles that encrust them. And so my personal view is that we ought to think much more aggressively about 

sunsetting and sunset procedures than we do. 

Senator JOHNSON. I would love to work with your group on that 

type of proposal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Johnson. Those were 

good exchanges. 

Senator Pryor, and then finally Senator Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

having this hearing. My understanding is that not all of our colleagues were encouraging you to have this hearing, but I am glad 

that the two of you decided to have it. 

I think there is some good news here, and that is the idea there 

is nothing wrong with Washington that we cannot fix. It is just a 

matter of political will. And one thing I appreciate about No Labels 

is you are putting ideas out there for us to talk about, to think outside the box, to think about doing things differently, and maybe to 

build national consensus on getting the political will necessary to 

get some good reforms done here in the Congress. 

But, really, there are lots of different ways to do it. You could 

do it by rule changes. You could do it by changing laws. You could 

just do it by changing the way we commit to each other that we 

are going to do our business here. 

But on the budget itself, let me say this: One of the things that 

I have been working on, Mr. Chairman, is to actually go back to 

the Budget Reform Act of 1974, and since I have been here for 9 

years, it has never really worked exactly the way it is supposed to 

work. Maybe one year out of those nine, I think we have actually 

followed that law to the letter. And it is time for us to look at that. 

That law is now 40 years old, and we ought to look at it and figure 

out a better, more workable, more realistic way to budget. And that 

means change. And there are a lot of folks who resist change, but 

I do think that we should put that on the table as well. 

One idea that I like actually comes from Arkansas, and we have 

been doing biennial budgets there, which I know you all support. 

Actually, the people just a year or two ago voted to go back to an 

annual session so we do not have to do biennial budgets anymore. 

So we are trying that for a while. I always thought the biennial 

budget worked pretty well, and I am certainly open to looking at 

that on the Federal level. 

But one of the things we do in Arkansas is balance the budget 

every year. Unlike most States, we do not have a balanced budget 

provision in the Constitution. We have a law, and it is the Revenue 

Stabilization Act, and what we do is at the end of the legislative 

28 

session, the legislature prioritizes. They work with the governor, 

but they prioritize the spending into three different categories, and 

basically you connect your spending to your revenues. If it is not 

coming in, you do not spend it. It is a very simple way to do it. 

There is a formula. They now have been doing it there for 40 or 

50 years. It works great. But, again, that gets back to political will. 

I guess that theoretically if Arkansas wanted to, they could go 

into deficit spending, but they do not. We are one of the few States 

that actually had a fairly hefty budget surplus during the recession, and we actually cut taxes. We actually cut our sales tax on 

food during that same time. 

So it really does come down to leadership and will, but you have 

to have the right systems in place to get it all done. 

I mentioned the Arkansas approach because I think it is something we should consider as we are looking at new ways to budget. 

We ought to consider good ideas from the private sector, from 

States, and wherever else the ideas come from. Let us put them on 

the table and talk about them and see if we can get those done. 

With regard to the No Budget, No Pay Act, I love the conversation that we are having about this. Mr. Davis and Mr. Galston, I 

would like to hear from you about the response that you are receiving around the country. I know that the No Labels group has done 

some op-eds, and you all have been on some talk shows, and you 

have been promoting this idea around the country. 

What are you hearing from the country? Is it an unqualified 

‘‘Amen,’’ or do people actually have other constructive suggestions 

that go along with this? Mr. Davis, would you want to answer that? 

Mr. DAVIS. I think Mr. Galston noted it. It polls very well. It is 

almost a two-fer for the voters. You get a budget on time, and you 

get a shot at Congress. But it just shows the frustration at this 

point at Washington’s inability to get anything meaningful done 

and just kicking the can down the road, whether it is budget, 

whether it is energy policy, whatever, and the mounting deficits 

just keep going up, and it does not appear anybody wants to do 

anything of a controversial issue. So I think it is really reflected 

in that. 

There may be other ways to get to that end, but I think there 

is just a frustration that they do not see any outcomes coming out 

of Washington. 

Mr. GALSTON. It is an interesting question, Senator Pryor, 

whether we are promoting this to the country or the country is promoting this to us. I think it is at least as much the latter as it the 

former. I can tell you, when I speak, the response is instant and 

electric. I can barely get to my second sentence. 

But let me say something else, and I will refer back to my opening testimony. I am not here to demean anybody, and the folks in 

back of me are not here to demean anybody. They are here to help, 

to lend their voices to the creation of a system of rules that will 

actually help the Congress and the country work better and get the 

people’s business done. And if I thought that anything in this proposal or any of the other 11 proposals were demeaning, I would not 

be sitting here defending it, which gives me an opportunity to 

make one more point. 

29 

I do not think that anything in this package takes away anybody’s First Amendment rights. I think that some of the pieces of 

this package are designed to the question of how we ought to exercise our First Amendment rights, which is a different proposition. 

You can have the right to do something and it would still be wrong 

to do it. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I look 

forward to continuing the conversation. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Pryor. Senator Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Collins, 

for having this hearing. Thank you all for testifying. 

I have to tell you, I very much agree with No Budget, No Pay. 

I would split it between the Senate and the House because I think 

the House is more inclined to do that and get it done on time. And 

I think where 2-by-4 is needed really is in the Senate. No matter 

who is running the House, what we have seen is because they have 

a Rules Committee, they actually get it done. 

The other thing I would note, you all mentioned earlier about 

nominations. According to the Congressional Research Service, the 

problem in the Senate with nominations was not a filibuster on the 

floor. The problem is they did not go through the committees, and 

that is a report I would direct you to do, because what that says 

is leadership is not demanding committees get their work done. 

I guess I would make a couple of points and then ask a couple 

of questions. 

I do not think it is all process. I think what is sorely lacking in 

Washington is leadership. This country is facing the largest catastrophe it has ever faced. It is going to come much sooner than everybody thinks. It is going to be much more painful that anyone 

can imagine, and not anything we are doing is addressing that 

problem right now. And that is leadership. That is ignoring the 

real world, and embracing the next election is far more important 

to our country than what is about to happen to us. 

And, actually, the best thing that could happen to us is for the 

Congress to say, ‘‘Here are the problems in front of us. We are 

going to fix this this year and all go home and send somebody else 

up here.’’ 

I have my own views. I am a vast supporter of term limits. I 

think it is the kind of thing that limits your ability to think in a 

partisan manner and causes you to act more in a constructive manner for the country. I think it is helpful. When we talk about bucking a party, what is happening in our country is we are bucking 

the Constitution. And when you take one for your team instead of 

taking one for the American people, you have failed already, and 

that is failed leadership. 

The questions I have for you go along the line of what Senator 

Johnson said. Mr. Wolfensberger’s testimony said follow regular 

order. What would the Senate look like today if we actually followed regular order instead of manipulating everything—and I am 

not talking about here, I am talking about both sides of the aisle— 

to create an advantage in the next election? What happens if we 

actually followed regular order? Since I left the House, we used to 

30 

have an open amendment process on appropriations. I actually 

used that to filibuster in the House for the first time in its history, 

put 172 amendments up on an agricultural appropriation bill. But 

I was allowed to do that because the House’s history was you have 

an open amendment process. 

We do not have an open process because we have converted everything to the next election. We are always going to fix what is 

wrong with our country after the next election, and that is a lack 

of leadership. That is a failure of leadership both for us individually and our party leaders in the Senate. It is a failure. And the 

American people are anxious and upset about it, and rightly so. 

But here is my question. Let us make every change that No Labels wants to make. How do you take this culture of careerism out 

of the mix that will not, in fact, negate the very things that you 

are recommending? Mr. Galston, do you want to go first? 

Mr. GALSTON. Senator, I have no good answer to your question. 

Let me start by saying that. I will say this, and I would say this 

even if I were not in this chamber addressing you: If there were 

more committees in the Congress like this Committee, we would 

not be having this discussion. And if there were more Senators who 

were willing to do what you did on the Simpson-Bowles Commission, we would not be having this discussion. 

Senator COBURN. Well, that right there is the point. It matters 

who is here. 

Mr. GALSTON. I could not agree more. 

Senator COBURN. It matters who is here. It is not just process. 

Mr. DAVIS. Senator, the voters bear some responsibility, too, in 

terms of who they are sending and what they are paying attention 

to at this point. 

Senator COBURN. Sure, but what we do is allow gerrymandering 

in this country where the Congressman picks his district rather 

than the district pick their Congressman. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, you have looked at what they have done in California where you not only have—— 

Senator COBURN. I am very supportive of what they have done 

in California. 

Mr. DAVIS. And the runoff election provisions where it is between 

the top two, and that brings a different segment in, and you will 

see political behavior change with that. Instead of focusing on a 

narrow segment of the electorate, you talk to everybody, and that 

changes everybody’s perspective in terms of how they do it. 

Mr. WOLFENSBERGER. Yes, I think your point is very well taken. 

You mentioned the culture of careerism. I call it the ‘‘culture of the 

perpetual campaign,’’ and that is closely linked. If you ask Members to look long term, what is long term for most Members of Congress? The next election. It is not what might be best in terms of 

really getting the debt down, deficits down, or anything else, and 

I think that is the big problem. How do you get that leadership 

that you want? I am not a term limit supporter, but I do think the 

voters bear some responsibility for paying some attention and turning out people that do not exercise the will to get things done. 

I do not think process is the solution. Rudy Penner used to say 

when he was CBO Director, or thereafter, talking about the deficits, ‘‘The process is not the problem. The problem is the problem.’’ 

31 

It is a matter of will. It is a matter of leadership. And I think 

that is something to keep in mind. How you get there, I am not 

sure. Maybe term limits ultimately will come back as a big issue. 

I do not know. 

Senator COBURN. I would just put forth in a final statement the 

fact that we have the budget situation we are in today would be 

a sign that we get along way too well rather than do not get along 

well enough. Otherwise, we would have fixed the problem. 

A final point. I agree with you also on the filibuster. If you are 

going to filibuster, you ought to be out there talking and have people who agree with you willing to carry out a filibuster rather than 

the threat of a filibuster. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Coburn. 

The votes have begun on the floor, so I think we are going to call 

this to a close. But I view it very much in the terms that I think 

you, Mr. Galston or Mr. Davis said. This is the beginning of a conversation. I think it has been a very thoughtful and constructive 

beginning, and if I may say so in praise of No Labels, I think that 

has been the tenor of the movement since it began. 

People are really angry at the Federal Government, and we know 

why. We have all talked about it. And, therefore, a lot of the political reactions to government have been angry and negative. I understand it, but it does not really get us anywhere. In fact, one 

could say that in the last two national elections, the people of 

America have expressed either a combination of anger and hope for 

change in very different ways in 2008 and 2010, and I do not believe that either one of the results of those expressions at the voting booth has gotten the government where the people want it to 

be. Self-evidently, it has not because we are now in probably the 

most partisan session of Congress since I got here 24 years ago. 

So I want to praise No Labels because No Labels really has been 

constructive and thoughtful in response to the crisis in American 

Government. And I would also say that in doing so you have given 

voice to the largest part of the population whose voice is not reflected well in our political system today. As some of you have said, 

there is disproportionate influence by the most ideologically intense 

groups in both political parties. Independents have trouble working 

their way through the political system—as I can tell you. [Laughter.] 

But out there, there is this vast—I do not even want to be too 

descriptive, but it is a middle ground. It is a third force. And I 

think your numbers have grown so rapidly because you are giving 

voice to that force, and fortunately for the country you are doing 

it in a constructive way. 

So let us consider this the beginning of a conversation. Since this 

is my last year in the Senate, I hope we can accelerate the conversation because I agree with you that we cannot just hope and 

pray for a miraculous, what might be called, ‘‘political awakening’’—thinking of the religious awakenings that have occurred in 

American history—here in Congress. There is not just going to be 

some spontaneous cultural change. It has to be forced, and so I look 

forward to working with you and others to see how we might try 

to do that, hopefully in this session of Congress. 

Senator Collins, do you want to add anything? 

32 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Chairman, I just want to second your concluding comments and thank all of our witnesses today for appearing and for sharing their very thoughtful testimony. Thank you all. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins. 

As is normally the order here, we will keep the record of this 

hearing open for 15 days for any additional questions or statements 

that people want to submit for the record. 

I thank everybody for being here, and with that, the hearing is 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:46, the Committee was adjourned.] 

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