Holiday's D.C. exodus puts brakes on budget panel

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers leaving early for Thanksgiving break brought the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform to a halt Thursday.

Because of the departures, the committee no longer had the quorum necessary to wrap up business.

Votes on a bipartisan package of recommendations have been pushed back until Nov. 27, three days before the statutory deadline for completing their work.

The committee's two co-chairmen, U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., and U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., have expressed support for the measure, which would shift Congress from annual to biennial budgeting.

But Lowey suggested Thursday that the deal may be abandoned by committee Democrats unless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., reach an agreement on how to proceed.

"We need to hear from them that there's an agreement or we just can't proceed and have a final product," Lowey said.

In order to be approved and forwarded to Congress, the committee's recommendations must receive majority support from its Republican-appointed members as well as its Democratic members.

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, which passed with broad bipartisan support, mandated creation of the joint select committee, giving it until Nov. 30 to "provide recommendations and legislative language that will significantly reform the budget and appropriations process."

Noting the task the committee had been given, Womack urged committee members to continue moving forward. He didn't want to leave; he wanted to continue working.

"This joint select committee is on the verge of success having operated without a hint of partisanship for this entire year," he said. "Throughout all of it we've never known what leadership on either side of the Capitol really intended to do with our work. ... This entire process has been left to us and it is our requirement, I think our obligation, to see it through to the end."

Under the 1974 Congressional Budget Act, lawmakers are supposed to pass a dozen separate spending bills by Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year.

But they haven't completed their task by the deadline in more than two decades.

The national debt is nearing $22 trillion with that figure expected to rise sharply over the coming decade.

The joint select committee met for months and held numerous public hearings this year.

Womack, who serves as House Budget Committee chairman, has urged his colleagues to seek solutions.

U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said the joint select committee's work has been productive.

"I think it's been very worthwhile. There's been a lot of thoughtful discussions," he said.

The fixes that have been proposed are "incremental," he said and don't address the larger issues.

"I think the primary takeaway for me is that the balance of the problems with the budget are not procedural or systemic. They're just personal and political but I think the steps that we're proposing to take will help a little bit," he said.

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NYTNS

Rep. Nita Lowey

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U.S. Congressman Steve Womack

A Section on 11/16/2018

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