This week, Congress moved closer to passing four separate bills that would provide $95 billion in funding for Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific allies, and the domestic submarine industrial base. This funding has been discussed for months, and much of it is going toward wars that have been going on for some time and will likely continue. In other words, it's nothing new or surprising. But once again, it will be labeled „emergency spending“ and will be a tool that will allow lawmakers to become even more fiscally irresponsible.
Before I explain my objections to their actions, I would like to make two points. The first one may be the most important. I don't want readers to get the impression that Congress is only irresponsible when it uses emergency labels to spend money. Congress is always irresponsible. Lawmakers have amassed $34 trillion in debt without really collectively thinking about how to pay for it. At a time when the United States was at peace and the economy was growing, the deficit reached 5.6%. They have done much of this deficit spending outside of the emergency process.
Second, there's nothing wrong with using emergency labels to pay for truly unexpected expenses. In the event of an unexpected catastrophe, lawmakers must have a way to quickly appropriate funds without waiting for the next budget to be passed. In theory, that's what the amendment bill is for. The emergency label provides Congress with some legroom. While a short-term crisis is underway, legislators don't have to ponder where every dollar comes from.
The problem is when Congress abuses the supplementary appropriation process to circumvent normal budget discipline by spending large sums of money for predictable, rather than temporary, purposes and labeling this spending as „emergency.“ occurs in
this abuse happens frequently. Because these bills are often passed quickly under the guise of immediate needs, there is less scrutiny of spending than in the normal budgeting process. This is an opportunity to allocate funds to wasteful spending or less urgent projects. Additionally, the regular use of subsidies gives agencies and Congress an incentive to inflate annual budget requests and avoid planning for the unexpected, which is counterproductive to say the least. is.
Supplements are expected every year, so they no longer represent a surprise. Call them whatever you want. It's another gimmick for Congress to circumvent its own budget constraints.
This is exactly what is happening. We can debate whether the United States should direct funds to Ukraine or Israel, but one thing is certain: such funds will be allocated through the normal budget process, subject to normal budget discipline. That means you should. This will require Congress to discuss trade-offs and offsets.
At the Center for Economic Policy Innovation, Paul Winfrey and Brittany Madoni explain that Congress and the president should have used the regular budgeting process to address several of the ongoing crises of the past few months. Instead, Congress intentionally passed a $1.684 trillion spending bill, leaving $95 billion to be funded outside the regular process and in an „emergency“ supplement above the cap. Lawmakers now routinely refuse to apply budget caps that require offsets between additional spending and real spending cuts or eliminations.
It's not that there aren't many ways to offset this expense. Winfree revealed that as of last year, $120 billion was not obligated to the COVID-19 State and Local Financial Recovery Fund. The pandemic is over. That money should be cancelled. On the other hand, Adam Michel of the Cato Institute said, claimed The idea is that the employee retention tax credit should be abolished or reformed. This could generate at least about $180 billion. Money would also be saved by eliminating agricultural subsidies that primarily benefit wealthy farmers at the expense of small, young farms and all consumers. Of course, all crony projects that benefit large and wealthy corporations should be considered first. It would be easy to find at least $150 billion per year in this category.
While additional spending is essential to address unforeseen circumstances, Congress is currently continually and needlessly abusing this process. The same goes for the spending bill being pushed through today. We should have more honest and thorough discussions.
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