for emergency spending. Why we don't have some form of rainy day fund is beyond my understanding.

Additionally, no Federal program should be on automatic pilot. We heard both people who testified before me talk about our mandatory spending, and, clearly, if you would look at the growth of mandatory spending as a percentage of our Federal budget, we have seen it grow astronomically over the last 20 to 30 years. Í am not here to participate in partisan rhetoric. However, I am saying that that is a process reform problem, not a political problem. There is a process reform policy that we can adjust if we take mandatory spending and basically do away with that language and say that everything is discretionary and we must authorize it and appropriate it on a yearly basis. Then we can't simply dodge the bullet by saying that these programs are politically sensitive and we can't deal with them any longer.

Finally, and this is something as a freshman that I can speak very adeptly about, we have got to get rid of the budget-speak that reigns supreme in Washington. Here in Congress, instead of talking about inflows and outflows that every family can understand, we talk about the finer points of 602(a)s and 602(b)s, and authorizing and appropriating, reconciliation, rescissions, spend-out-rates, and out years. That is enough to make the guy on the street's head spin. It is no wonder we lack the accountability and responsibility in dealing with the Federal budget when nobody understands it.

I would just highlight my testimony today by saying one of the first conversations that I heard between a senior Member in Congress and Chairman Kasich of the Budget Committee. The conversation went something like this: "Mr. Chairman, are you going to make the budget this year so that we can understand it?" Now, that is coming from a senior Member in Congress who does not understand the budget process.

If the Members of Congress don't understand what we are doing, how is the guy on the street going to be able to understand it? And if the guy on the street doesn't understand it and the Congress doesn't understand it, where is the accountability in the process?

In closing, I believe we must keep the budget process simple and understandable. Members of Congress and members of the public should understand one of the most basic responsibilities of Congress-setting a budget. I believe through simplicity we will gain accountability and working together we may finally gain real control over the ever amorphous budget beast.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would be glad to answer any questions.

[Mr. Largent's prepared statement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. STEVE LARGENT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

To the cochairman and members of the subcommittees, thank you for holding this hearing today. There are many issues surrounding budget process reform that need airing and deserve a full discussion. I understand that you share my interest and enthusiasm for reforming the current budget procedures, and I appreciate you calling this important hearing today.

Because we are in the heat of the appropriations process, frustrations and tensions of Members who want to be fiscally responsible are at an all time high. However, I believe the problems we are facing this summer are not those of personalities or politics-the frustrations come from a poor budget process.

Just look at the attached graph of the current process-you will see a futile maze. After looking at this tangled web, is it any wonder we are facing difficulties today?

To begin with, let me say that part of our problem is ignoring the checks and balances currently on the books. For example, I believe the beginning of any good legislative project has to be enforceable deadlines. So far this year, I do not know of one statutory deadline concerning the budget that we have met. What good are deadlines to help the process run smoothly if everyone ignores them?

In addition to upholding deadlines, we should also follow our own rules. No appropriations should be allowed without the authorizing legislation to go along with it. Also, we should not allow appropriations to exceed the amount approved by the authorizing committees.

Another problem I've noticed in my short stay here is emergency spending. In my home State of Oklahoma, our State government has a rainy day fund to help keep the State on budget. I am not saying there will never be emergencies-I know emergencies come along. But let me say that since unexpected emergencies happen almost expectedly every year, shouldn't we budget for emergencies and prevent higher deficits?

Additionally, no Federal program should be on automatic pilot. All programsboth mandatory and discretionary-should be subject to annual review and annual funding. Congress should not abdicate its responsibility to oversee programs that consume tax dollars just because these programs are deemed too sensitive. We must take the budget beast to task and shore up our chronic deficit habit.

Last, we must end the budget-speak that reigns supreme in Washington. Here in the Congress instead of talking about inflows and outflows that everyone can understand, we discuss the finer points of 602(a)'s and 602(b)'s, authorizing and appropriating, reconciliation, rescissions and spend-out-rates.

Committees of jurisdiction do not line up between the House and the Senate. In the House, committees of authorizing jurisdiction do not coincide with the same subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. Budget function numbers that are used by the Budget Committee do not correspond directly to an authorizing committee or to any particular Appropriations subcommittee. With no clear lines of responsibility-accountability is lacking.

In closing, I believe we must keep the budget process simple and understandable. Members of Congress and members of the public should understand one of the most basic responsibilities of the Congress-setting a budget. I believe through simplicity we will gain accountability and working together we may finally gain real control over the ever amorphous budget beast.

[The graph referred to by Mr. Largent follows:]

This complex maze explains the process the House, the Senate and the President must go through to produce the federal budget.

Is it any wonder reducing spending is so difficult in Washington?

Mr. Goss. Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony and your chart. Your chart reminds me a little bit of something I saw during the health care debate which I hope to never see again.

I do have a question. You have made some observations that I think are generally in line with some of the thoughts we have had and some of the motivation for getting going in this area, and I applaud what you are trying to do as well with the freshman group. And do you have any particular plans that you are following? Are we on a parallel track with what you are doing?

Mr. LARGENT. We are on a parallel track. I would tell you that I am working with Chris Cox as well on his bill and trying to make it more comprehensive. The bill that he has currently is one that he introduced as a Member of the minority. He feels like there is even some more aggressive changes that we can add to his bill, and our office is open to his office. So we are speaking from the same song sheet right now.

Although I would tell you that I think in my opinion that while I am in total agreement with Chris in what he is trying to do, I think there is even more comprehensive things that need to be done in terms of streamlining the process. I think that when our committees don't line up with the Senate's committees and that when function totals are spread out over a half a dozen subcommittees and across committee lines, that you really lose any clear line of responsibility for any particular line in the budget, and I think all of that creates a convoluted system whereby nobody understands it and it is hard really to have any kind of accountability. Mr. Goss. Well, "a" words are particularly troublesome in Washington. Accountability is one of them. Affordability is another. I agree with your views on simplicity. I agree with your views on fair play. I certainly agree with your views on accountability and I certainly agree with your views on balance.

Mr. LARGENT. I have been called a few "a" words since my time in Washington.

Mr. Goss. Mr. Beilenson.

Mr. BEILENSON. Just two or three things, one minor.

You may be right about not making deadlines, Steve, but our friends have been pretty good about getting pretty close to them. If I may say so, it is not tragic if we don't make deadlines as long as we get it done in a reasonable fashion. If we get the budget resolution done 2, 3, or 4 weeks after we were supposed to, it is not quite so nice as if we got it out when we were supposed to. But it is okay, they did their job pretty well. The net difference there wouldn't be a difference. They are doing-you all are doing what you need to do and what you want to do, and if you don't quite make the deadlines I wouldn't worry overly about it.

When you said no Federal program should be on automatic pilot, I guess you were including Social Security.

Mr. LARGENT. Yes, sir.

Mr. BEILENSON. A good many of us I think agree with you. The problem is 30 years or so ago it was not I mean, Congress used to vote every election year to raise Social Security benefits by usually twice as much as the cost of living was going up because they wanted everybody to vote for them in November of that year. So originally the whole idea of indexing benefits was to slow down the

rate of growth of Social Security and make it fair and just have it jibe with the actual cost-of-living increase. If you go back to that, even though at the moment, we might all take a deep breath and cut the COLA's or whatever, in the long run it might lead led to more spending rather than less. We don't want to repeat the failures of the past.

And finally, with respect to accountability, which I agree with you very much about, no matter what kind of process you have, whatever it is that you might come up with, if we were to put that into effect and to simplify as much as possible, it still won't be terribly well understood by the person on the street back home and there is no reason why it should be. If you don't have 602(a)s and 602(b)s you will have something else because there is going to be some act with numbers in it which we are going to refer to which is going to throw other people.

The accountability is happening right now, if I may say so, through the votes on the floor and the specific program cuts. Some people perhaps didn't understand quite what we were doing when we passed the budget resolution, but they do understand now as we vote on the NEA and everything else, Medicare eventually. Now that voting on the floor is taking place, that is where the accountability takes place.

So long as whatever process we have provides for votes on specific programs and portions of the budget, then we have to make the difficult decisions and the people back home will know how we are voting on it. For all of us, of course, at this point it becomes far more difficult than it was, let's say, for you all when you voted for your budget resolution, which was very good in theory. When you start getting down to cutting specific programs, which we are now beginning to do on the floor, that is when it gets tough, and in the last analysis we have accountability. I mean, your thoughts are nice and they are good. But I would be interested in hearing from you in another year or so from now.

Mr. LARGENT. Well, I accept that pat on the head and that you are new here in town, and I mean that in a positive way. But let me just say a couple things. One is that I think deadlines are important. If they are not important, let's don't set them because I think it is a credibility issue.

Mr. BEILENSON. If you didn't set them, we wouldn't do it at all. You know, it is better that we miss them, then do it, which is what is happening.

Mr. LARGENT. In my opinion, it is really a credibility issue. If we are going to have the rules, let's adhere to the rules. One of the things we did in the first days of Congress is to say we are going to adhere to the same rules we passed for everybody. I think that applies as well for our own House rules. And if we are not going to adhere to them, then let's change them so that we don't have this hypocrisy.

Mr. BEILENSON. You think other folks in the world adhere to the rules they are supposed to follow? No, we are no different. We are human beings.

Mr. LARGENT. What I am saying is we are held I think-and you know this is true, we are held to a different standard than everybody else, and it is a much higher standard, and I think rightfully