House Budget Committee Unanimously Passes Congressman Moore’s Bipartisan Bill to Improve Congressional Access to Economic Data
WASHINGTON – The House Budget Committee passed Congressman Blake Moore’s Increasing Baseline Updates Act by a unanimous vote of 32-0. This bipartisan piece of legislation will require the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to produce at least two baseline updates each year, including one update with economic data. This will ensure Congress has the most up-to-date information on relevant budget and economic figures to inform the appropriations process and other legislation. Congressman Moore was joined by Congressman Thomas Suozzi (D-NY) in introducing this legislation.
“I appreciate my Budget colleagues’ unanimous support of the bipartisan Increasing Baseline Updates Act. This legislation will bolster Congress’s ability to make informed decisions about federal spending based on updated budget and economic figures,” said Congressman Moore. “Returning to regular order is critical to reversing Washington’s debt culture, and this bill is a common-sense step toward improving the way we conduct business.”
“This is another in a series of bipartisan, common-sense bills I have sponsored during the session. In the Budget Committee, we demonstrated that, by working together, Republicans and Democrats can still get results,” said Congressman Suozzi. “I was trained as a CPA; I am concerned about our budget and deficits. I know the importance of accuracy in budget estimates. If Congress and the public can get better data, we will be in a better position to fix our budgets. The latest CBO baseline anticipated that taxpayers will accumulate more than $22 trillion in deficit spending over the next ten years. If we are going to tackle our nation’s debt, we have to get serious about knowing where our problems are and what we can do to fix it.”
Background:
Under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, CBO is required to publish its baseline before February 15th of each year. The baseline is a projection of federal outlays and revenues under current and future fiscal years according to existing law. Despite the requirement for an annual baseline, there is no statutory obligation for CBO to provide a specific number of baseline updates, which are critical to ongoing policymaking in Congress. The last time CBO published a baseline update after July was 2020. This is problematic considering Congress’s tendency to pass government funding bills at the end of the calendar year. Additionally, the last time CBO published three baselines in a year was 2019. This leaves lawmakers relying on outdated information on the fiscal state of our nation. The Increasing Baseline Updates Act is an important step toward improving our budget process and returning to regular order.
The text to the Increasing Baseline Updates Act can be found here.
Watch Congressman Moore’s committee remarks on the Increasing Baseline Updates Act here:
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