Senator Lott's recent decision to table the supplemental appropriations bill against the wishes of the House and of Senate appropriators demonstrates the difficulty here. All I can suggest is more regular consultations between party and committee leaders in both branches. Authorizing committees have responsibility for problem exploration, agenda setting, policy analysis, program design, deliberation to reconcile diverse and often competing interests on legislative matters under their purview, monitoring implementation, program evaluation, and reauthorization. The budget process is designed to set the broad parameters for revenues and expenditures while the appropriations process examines how the dollars are actually spent. Difficulties arise when each of these separate processes intrudes on the other.
Annual authorizations become de facto appropriations bills.
Authorizing provisions in appropriations bills crowd out the substantive committees. The challenge is to recognize the comparative advantage of each process and to build incentives for each to stick to its advantage.