Republican Study Committee Releases 2020 Budget Proposal

Budget - GettyImages-915636236

Congress is supposed to pass an annual spending budget, though it rarely gets around to it. Instead, the government is usually funded through a mashup of individual appropriations bills, omnibus appropriations bills, and continuing resolutions. This makes government spending less transparent and less accountable. It also leaves the federal government vulnerable to shutdowns during political fights, which happened in January of this year.

Fortunately, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) has just issued a proposed budget. It is likely the only budget that will be introduced in Congress this year, though unlikely to pass a Democratic House. As with any issue-spanning document, one can quibble with its contents regardless of political persuasion. Still, the RSC deserves a great deal of credit for at least putting something out there.

Other parts of the GOP should also issue their own proposed budgets; unlike The Highlander, there can be more than one. Across the aisle, a Democratic budget(s) would face similar obstacles in a Republican Senate and White House. They still should release their own budgets to make their policy priorities more concrete.

The whole RSC FY 2020 Budget is here. The document cites CEI sources on a variety of issues:

  • Regulatory Reform. The budget gives an entire chapter to regulatory reform, beginning on page 17, and cites Wayne Crews’s Ten Thousand Commandments annual report—the 2019 edition of which will be released soon.
  • Energy and Environment. The budget’s recommendations for increasing North American energy production draw on the energy and environment chapter in CEI’s Agenda for the 116th Congress.
  • Export-Import Bank. On page 25, the budget would abolish the Export-Import Bank, citing my paper “Ten Reasons to Abolish the Export-Import Bank.” Ex-Im’s charter expires this September 30, and will close if Congress declines to reauthorize it.

Kudos to the RSC for putting out a tangible document that should serve as a starting point for debating federal priorities for the next fiscal year—and for attempting to fix a broken budget process. They also have excellent taste in finding sources for many of their ideas; interested readers can find more in CEI’s Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 116th Congress.