COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF POSITIONS FOR 1980 AND 1981 AND ESTIMATES FOR 1982-Continued [Excludes Senate items and items under Architect of the Capitol for the Senate] , 1 Does not reflect effect of section 309 of H.R. 7593, referenced in the Further Continuing Appropriations, 1981 (Public Law 96-536), which requires that 2 percent of total budget authority not required by law shall be withheld from obligation and expenditure. I am pleased to submit herewith the appropriations request of the Joint Economic Committee for fiscal year 1982. The Committee is requesting the amount of $2,250,000 for fiscal year 1982. This is an increase of less than 5 percent for FY 1982 over FY 1981. The Committee believes that continuing to operate in the same fiscally responsible manner as has been its practice, this increase will be sufficient to accomplish the goals envisioned during the period under consideration. For the fifth consecutive year, the Committee is not requesting an increase in staff, although there will be staffing adjustments made to accommodate the incoming Majority in the Senate. The Committee is hopeful that it will be able to continue to serve both Houses of Congress as effectively as it has in years past. The Joint Economic Committee, along with the President's Council of Economic Advisers, was established by the Employment Act of 1946. The Committee is to the Congress what the Council of Economic Advisers is to the President the body which advises on the broad spectrum of economic issues. The Committee has a statutory responsibility to make an annual report to the Congress on the President's economic program. - Since March of 1979, the Committee's Annual and Mid-year reports have been consensus reports, signed by all twenty Members of the Joint Economic Committee Republicans and Democrats alike. The Committee released during calendar 1980 34 sets of hearings and 14 reports, studies, and compendia, dealing with such subjects as tax policy and core inflation, the crisis in the bond market, alcohol fuels policy, U.S. trade and investment policy, Federal Reserve policy, to name a few. The Committee held 22 sets of hearings covering 47 days, focusing on a myriad of topics, some of which were energy, auto imports, housing, supply-side economics, capital formation, state and local financing, and savings and growth. It continued its monthly review of employment and unemployment and of the consumer price index. I have attached a listing of the publications released by the Committee during the 96th Congress, which gives in greater detail the areas to which the Committee devoted its attention. (29) The Honorable Adam Benjamin, Jr. The Committee's Special Study on Economic Change has issued its final report, culminating three and one-half years of intensive study covering ten areas, on which individual reports have been issued. These reports were the product of more than 100 individual papers commissioned for and prepared by the staffs of the Special Study and the Joint Economic Committee. The Special Study has completed its mandated task without requesting any increase in funds for the last two fiscal years and will return to the Treasury in excess of $150,000 from amounts previously appropriated. The study will be of vital importance in the academic community and to serious financial experts and writers in the United States and abroad. It is already becoming a valuable document in the formulation of an economic agenda for the 1980s and is proving useful to our colleagues and to the Administration in developing a range of economic policy options. The Committee has an excellent record of spending funds efficiently and effectively and it constantly evaluates its spending practices to obtain economies. If savings result, the Committee returns such funds to the Treasury, as it has succeeded in doing for many years. Mr. Chairman, we have requested an appropriation which is lean but with which, by close scrutiny of expenditures, the Committee can continue to provide its colleages with a continued high quality of service in an effort to solve the serious economic problems with which we are faced today. JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE EXPENDITURES: ACTUAL FISCAL YEAR 1/ Does not include 10/1/80 c.o.1. of $100,000. 43,000 2/ There was no request for FY '81. Any FY '81 expenditure will be funded with authorit. carried over from Leg. Branch Appropriations Acts of 1979 and 1980. 3/ Special Study on Economic Change will terminate as of December 31, 1980. |