As Congress begins work this week on the fiscal year 2003 budget resolution,
The Concord Coalition has the following recommendations of things to do and
things not to do:
Things to do
As Congress begins work this week on the fiscal year 2003 budget resolution,
The Concord Coalition has the following recommendations of things to do and
things not to do:
Things to do
- Reaffirm the fiscally
responsible goal of balancing the budget without using the Social Security
surplus ¾
understanding that it will take a few years to achieve.
- Recognize that in the
post-September 11, post-surplus environment, all fiscal policy options should
be on the table ¾
from spending cuts to a freeze on tax cut phase-ins.
- Stick with CBO numbers
rather than the more optimistic numbers used by the Administration (OMB) in
the President’s budget.
- Adopt the
Administration’s suggestion that the FY2002 emergency supplemental spending
passed in response to September 11 ($20 billion) be excluded from the
baseline.
- Establish
a new budgetary enforcement framework to replace the expiring provisions of
the 1997 Balanced Budget Act (discretionary spending caps and the
“pay-as-you-go” rule for tax cuts and entitlement increases).
Things not to do
- Do not use an Orwellian
definition of “balance,” by excluding the cost of the recently passed stimulus
bill or any other popular legislation from the calculation.
- Do not adopt back loaded
initiatives that rely on unrealistic assumptions.
- Do not enact any new tax
cuts or remove the “sunset” from last year’s tax bill unless it is done within
the context an enforceable plan to balance the budget without using the Social
Security surplus.
- Do not assume large
unrealistic savings, as the President’s budget does, by holding non-defense
discretionary spending below inflation over the next decade.
- Do not engage in empty
rhetoric about Social Security “guarantees,” and trust fund “solvency.”
Current law is unsustainable. The only way to actually do something
about that is to change the law.
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