sidered by Congress. This resolution, introduced May 11, 1949, originally included provisions for an omnibus appropriation bill and a legislative budget committee consisting of five members each from the four "money" committees. When the resolution was favorably reported by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration (S. Rept. 1487, 81st Cong.) the omnibus provision was dropped, and there was added a provision that all proposals authorizing appropriations must estimate their cost over a 5-year period, or for the duration of the project if of shorter life. Following are extracts from the Senate report: *** Sponsors of Senate Concurrent Resolution 38 believe that the present provisions of section 138, which has resulted in an unworkable joint committee membership of over 100, is ineffective not only because of its unwieldliness but also because it lacks the staff and expert assistance to work on legislative budget estimates and appropriations statistics, on a year-around basis *** the existing staffs of the financial and appropriations committees are not in a position to act in an advisory capacity on the overall budget picture, because they must view legislation piecemeal * * The minority report filed by Chairman Hayden of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration opposed Senate Concurrent Resolution 38, but favored S. 2898 proposing the creation of a Joint Committee on the Budget (which was the predecessor to S. 1585, 85th Cong., covered in the preceding section of this report), and indicated that in any event Senate Concurrent Resolution 38 ought not to be considered until Congress reached a decision regarding the omnibus appropriation bill as proposed by H.R. 7786, which was then pending in the House. Senator Hayden opposed Senate Concurrent Resolution 38 as having All the faults, administrative as well as historical, of the now discredited section 138 (and doubts that) a small-staffed joint committee set up under this concurrent resolution could do anything even comparable to what the Budget Bureau, the Treasury, and the Appropriations Committees do. * * The first attempt by Congress to fix a legislative budget in the 80th Congress ended in wrangling *** the result will be the same if the proposed joint committee under this concurrent resolution make the same attempt *** To be of any use to Congress this joint committee must stand on its own feet and do its own work *** Senator Hayden urged S. 2898 as a "much more practical means for acquiring information needed by Congress in considering the Federal budget submitted each year" and preferred its two-way committee to the four-way committee proposed under Senate Concurrent Resolution 38. He also suggested an amendment requiring periodic revenue estimates for both Houses by the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation. A somewhat similar approach to the original objectives of section 138 of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, designed to effect a solution to this problem, has been embodied in a number of legislative proposals which would provide that Federal expenditures shall not exceed Federal revenues, except in time of war or grave national emergency declared by the Congress. EXPERIENCE WITH OMNIBUS APPROPRIATION BILL-ITEM VETO The Senate adopted a resolution (S. Con. Res. 18), on July 2, 1949, requiring the combination of the traditionally separate appropriation measures in a one-package or omnibus appropriation bill (S. Rept. 616, 81st Cong.), but the House of Representatives declined to report an omnibus bill because of the insistence of its Appropriations Committee that existing powers were adequate without statutory change. After a voluntary experiment on such a basis for the single fiscal year 1951, the House Appropriations Committee voted to return to the old procedure of reporting separate appropriation bills. New resolutions designed to restore the omnibus appropriation bill were introduced in subsequent Congresses. In the 83d Congress a resolution proposed by Senator Byrd, with 46 other Senators as cosponsors (S. Con. Res. 8), was reported favorably by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, on May 12, 1953, but failed of final passage. (S. Rept. 267.) Two factors were predominant in the congressional attitude toward the omnibus appropriation bill. One was the serious delay in passage, caused by the fact that the Senate was prevented from starting work on the many appropriation items until all of them, controversial and noncontroversial alike, were passed by the House. The other was that an omnibus appropriation bill lends itself to the addition of legislative riders. As a practical matter, the President cannot veto those riders which he deems objectionable unless he is willing to veto the whole omnibus bill and risk financial chaos for the Federal Government. To meet this objection several members of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration formulated S. 2161 in the 81st Congress, a partial-item veto bill, which was introduced on June 29, 1949, and referred to the Committee on Government Operations. The bill was never reported because its constitutionality was doubtful. Under the provisions of S. 2161, the President would have been authorized to veto all or any part of an appropriation bill passed by the Congress. But, insofar as any vetoed amounts were reappropriated by the Congress, restored items would not again be subject to a Presidential veto. Other bills introduced by Senator Humphrey during the 82d, 83d, and 84th Congresses, and referred to the Committee on Government Operations, would have authorized a Presidential item veto. These bills also contained other proposals providing for a consolidated cash budget, a separation of operating from capital expenditures, the scheduling of legislative action on appropriation measures, and requiring yea-and-nay votes on amendments to appropriation bills. PERCENTAGE CUTS IN APPROPRIATIONS Other fiscal proposals which have had serious consideration in the Senate include Senate Joint Resolution 108, reported favorably by the Committee on Government Operations in the 81st Congress (S. See section entitled "Item Veto Legislation," p. 236. Rept. 498), which combined the features of three pending resolutions, in an effort to bring about a more nearly balanced budget. The resolu tion would have required the President to make an overall reduction of not less than 5 percent nor more than 10 percent in the total amount of appropriations which he had recommended for the fiscal year 1950. Despite vigorous efforts on the Senate floor, this proposal made no progress. It was, therefore, added as a rider to an appropriation bill but failed by a narrow margin to receive the necessary two-thirds majority under Senate rules, after a point of order had been raised. A similar across-the-board cut was adopted, however, in the General Appropriation Act of 1951, approved September 6, 1950, which required that an overall cut of $550 million be made in the appropriations, reappropriations, contract authorizations, * * Similar efforts toward a flat percentage cut in proposed 1952 appropriations were pressed with vigor in the Senate in connection with appropriation measures, but the final determination was that good legislative practices required direct action on specific items, and that an across-the-board cut was not the proper solution to the problem. This proposed flat-percentage-cut type of legislative requirement was an acknowledgment that the Congress does not have the necessary machinery to develop the facts upon which to direct specifically indicated economies in Government spending, which the proposed Joint Committee on the Budget was designed to provide. Flat cuts are always subjected to criticism on the ground that the Congress has a responsibility to vote definite reductions in individually proposed appropriation items. It is also contended that the flat-percentage cut adversely and improperly affects, in the same degree, two entirely different kinds of agencies: (a) Those whose officials are conducting constructive and useful activities in efficient economical fashion, and submit realistic budget estimates for necessary agency operations as against (b) those who are making no efforts to do a good job, and in some instances have even managed so to pad their budget that a percentage cut will only reduce them to about the amount they had hoped in the first place to have available for expenditure. ALTERNATE BALANCED BUDGET Another fiscal proposal of basic importance proposed by Senator McClellan, chairman of the Committee on Government Operations, was made in Senate Joint Resolution 131 of September 23, 1949, which would have required the President to submit an alternate balanced budget along with his regular budget for the fiscal year 1951. When Senate Joint Resolution 131 made no progress, it was proposed in substance as a rider to H.R. 1689, the Executive Pay Raise Act of 1949, and was accepted as such by the Senate. It later was stricken in conference. As has already been set forth in this report, the committee, in approving S. 913 to create a Joint Committee on the Budget, in the 82d Congress, also adopted, by a majority vote, an amendment providing for annual submission by the President of an alternate balanced budget. The latter budget would parallel the regular budget which the President is required to submit at the beginning of each session of the Congress. While a majority of the committee endorsed this proposal in executive session, the committee preferred that its consideration by the Senate be kept separate from the other aspects of S. 913. An amendment to S. 913 calling for an alternate, balanced budget was submitted by Senator McClellan to the Senate when the bill was ap+ proved April 8, 1952. The amendment, however, was rejected by the Senate. No similar provision was included in the committee bill introduced in the 85th Congress (S. 1585). LEGISLATIVE BUREAU OF AUDIT AND REVIEW In the closing hours of the 82d Congress, Senator Homer Ferguson introduced S. 3482, establishing a Legislative Bureau of Audit and Review to analyze Federal activities and to recommend (a) elimination of those activities that are unnecessary or wasteful, and (b) transfer of Federal activities to State, local, or other public or private auspices when their performance would thereby be improved. The two top officials of the proposed Bureau were to be of opposite political parties, and their removal was made extremely difficult. Other permanent personnel were required to be under the civil service. When Senator Ferguson introduced S. 3482 he gave his reasons for doing so on the floor of the Senate (Congressional Record, pp. 9442– 9444, July 4, 1952). Most important of these was that "Congress has all but completely lost control of the purse even the Chief Executive has lost most of the essential control over the complex ramifications of the executive branch." Hence the Senator felt that such a bill was necessary "to determine what powers and duties can best be carried on by" levels other than Federal. He insisted that although various committees of Congress properly increase their staffs to meet emergency problems "a bold new approach such as I have suggested must be taken." * * * The Legislative Bureau of Audit and Review which was proposed in S. 3482 resembled the former Bureau of Efficiency, a Federal agency of administrative reform, which was in existence for about two decades. After several years' experimentation with an independent Presidential Commission (1910-13), and then with a special division of the Civil Service Commission (1913-16), Congress created a Bureau of Efficiency in 1916 which was active until its abolition in 1933. The basic idea of the new agency which was set forth in successive appropriation acts rather than a general organic statute, was to bring into the Federal Government an independent establishment that would obtain essential facts for Congress on departmental organization and methods, and on duplication of activities. Its similarity to certain phases of the Bureau of the Budget was never cleared up when that Bureau was created by statute in 1921. The influence of the Bureau of Efficiency dwindled rapidly upon the approval of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. BUDGET IMPROVEMENTS IN THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH In the last 10 years there have been marked improvements by the executive branch in the preparation and presentation of the budget. Many of these improvements have resulted from legislation on the part of the Congress, while others have resulted from the initiative of the executive branch. It follows that improvements made in the presentation of the budget would also assist the Congress in its examination of the budget. However, the adoption by Congress of legislation to establish a Joint Committee on the Budget would simplify congressional evaluation of the budget. Improvements in budgeting during the last 10 years are covered elsewhere in this report under "Bureau of the Budget." 10 In addition, a report dated November 17, 1959, by the Director of the Bureau of the Budget to the President on improvements in budgeting, present and contemplated, referred to the Joint Committee on the Budget as one of the budget reform proposals requiring congressional action. The report cited the progress in budget improvements which are largely the responsibility of the executive branch and those requiring both executive and congressional action. In addition to encouraging budget improvements in these two areas, the Director suggested a number of additional improvements which are under study and consideration. COMMITTEE ON FISCAL PLANNING House Resolution 481, was introduced in the 86th Congress on March 21, 1960, to create a Committee on Fiscal Planning for the House of Representatives, composed of the ranking members of the Appropriations and Ways and Means Committees, plus one other Member of the Congress to be appointed by the Speaker. This five-man committee would have been directed to initiate and continue a study of the finances of the Federal Government in order to coordinate revenues and expenses and to plan for the orderly reduction of the national debt. The committee was to report its findings and recommendations regularly to the Congress and to the public. This proposal was similar to resolutions introduced by Representative Ludlow in 1940 and again in 1943. House Resolution 481 was referred to the House Committee on Rules, where no further action was taken. SUMMARY OF MAJOR PROPOSALS CONSIDERED BY THE CONGRESS In addition to the bills providing for the creation of a Joint Committee on the Budget, and the various other legislation considered by the Congress as outlined in the preceding sections of this report, there have been other major proposals pending before the Congress for a number of years, most of which have received consideration at intervals since the enactment of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. These include proposals directed toward (a) achieving a balanced budget, (b) an omnibus appropriation bill, (c) item veto thority to the President, (d) separation of operating and capital expenditures in the budget, (e) creation of revolving funds, (f) pro 10 See pp. 131-138 of this report. |