Thread: Senate Republicans Introduce Honest Budget Act

Senate Republicans Introduce Honest Budget Act

October 5, 2011
By Steve Mustanski
Today, Senate Republicans introduced the Honest Budget Act in an attempt to change the way that the Federal Government budgets and spends money. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced the Honest Budget Act to make it harder for Washington to hide and justify spending to make the Federal Government operate the way that the citizens do.

Today, the Federal Government can pay for spending by claiming a savings on money they never intended to spend in the first place. For example, included in the deficit reduction proposed by President Obama are the savings of not being in Iraq at last years troop levels 10 years from now. Some of that money is then used for other spending or in phony savings. You can think of this as assuming that you will continue to pay your mortgage even after you have paid it off and using that money to pay for things now.

According to the Senators, the Honest Budget Act:

•Requires both houses of Congress to adopt a binding budget resolution or face a 60-vote threshold to move any spending bills through Congress (if they don’t create a budget, they need 60 votes to pass any spending);
•Makes it more difficult to label routine expenditures “emergency spendingâ€

Update.

U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepenuership
Recent Press Releases
Oct 05 2011

Snowe, Sessions Unveil ‘Honest Budget Act’ To Strip Away Washington’s Most Outrageous Gimmicks
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), Ranking Member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, today announced the introduction of the Honest Budget Act, a nine-plank legislative package that targets Washington’s most dishonest budget gimmicks and accounting tricks:

In a joint statement, Sens. Snowe and Sessions said:

“Washington relies on an astonishing array of dishonest budget gimmicks to enable and conceal countless billions in federal deficit spending. That is why we have introduced the Honest Budget Act: to strip away many of the most egregious budget gimmicks in Washington, to make it harder to spend money we don’t have, and to confront the culture of fiscal manipulation that is bleeding our country of future prosperity. No more gimmicks, tricks, or empty promises. Americans deserve honesty, transparency, and accountability. The Senate must adopt this overdue measure and we are confident it can receive bipartisan support. That is what we will fight to achieve. It is time for Congress to rebuild the trust it has so steadily eroded.â€