Both the House and Senate sides of the Joint Committee endorse a biennial budget process. Beginning with the 104th Congress, there are to be revisions in the timetable for the congressional budget process. Under the revised timetable, the biennial budget resolution would be enacted during the first session as would appropriations measures, while authorizing legislation would be considered during the second session. The move to biennial budgeting will reduce the number of redundant budget-related votes during each Congress, encourage longer time horizons in policy planning, and encourage greater stability in fiscal policy. The Budget Committee should issue to the Speaker by January 1 of each odd-numbered year a report identifying the key issues facing the Congress for the next biennium.
Biennial appropriations are a key component of the biennial budgeting reform.
The annual appropriations process is cumbersome and time consuming. Annual appropriations bills are considered under major time constraints in the hope of completing action by the start of the fiscal year. For agencies, the annual appropriations process requires a neverending round of hearings, markup sessions, conference reports, and planning for the next year's round of hearings. Moving to a biennial cycle would free up more time for program oversight and review, and allow members of the Appropriations Subcommittees to engage in formal oversight, an activity difficult to pursue given the annual appropriations cycle. Twenty years ago, House and Senate committees began to move to ever shorter authorization cycles in an effort to gain greater control over policymaking.