With all of the recent attention on the federal budget, the Senate Budget Committee today held a hearing on ways to reform and improve the budget process. Senator Warner urged consideration of a two-year budget cycle – the same process used in Virginia and many other states.

Photo by Adam Hughes/Senate Budget Committee

Biennial budgeting would allow Congress to focus on crafting a budget one year and spend the second year overseeing its implementation and providing tighter oversight of federal programs.

“I actually think a two year budgeting process and a two year appropriations process would, with appropriate guidelines, cut back on the kind of end-of-year finagling that many agencies do at this point,” Senator Warner said.

Photo by Adam Hughes/Senate Budget Committee

The Senator noted the important oversight role contained in his 2010 Government Performance and Modernization Act, which requires federal agencies to identify their top performing programs and priorities – and their least effective. “If you have too many goals, you don’t have any priorities,” Senator Warner said. “If that oversight work is not performed in the Budget Committee, I don't know where we'll be able to get a look at the kind of duplication and overlap of government programs.