budget summit
Congressional Republicans vowed "never again" after the Andrews Air Force Base budget summit in 1990 because they felt that their leadership had given up too much too easily; we really haven't had a formal summit since then. My column from today's Roll Call explains why the House GOP in particular should be willing to consider it not just this year, but starting almost immediately.
Why Not Try a Summit Instead of a Shutdown?
By Stan Collender
Roll Call Contributing Writer
Enough threatening body language, vocal recriminations and political posturing over a possible government shutdown at the end of this week or later in March. They are nothing more than sideshows to the budget debate that really needs to be taking place.
Here's my column from this week's Roll Call for what I hope will be your reading enjoyment.
This Was Not Your Father’s Budget Summit
February 24, 2009
By Stan Collender
Roll Call Contributing Writer
The budget summit held at the White House on Monday was actually rather historic.
Every other budget summit has been held when a deal had to be reached more or less immediately. In all of those cases, a summit was needed because there was some type of budget stalemate between Democrats and Republicans, the House and Senate, or Congress and the White House (or all of those) and there was a great deal of pressure on everyone in the room to come to some agreement. The stalemate, and therefore, the summit, usually occurred late in the budget process.
But none of these things are the case now and that means that the Obama budget summit being held at the White House on Monday is going to be very different than the ones we’ve had before. The differences:
• There is no need to reach a budget deal this year. Deficit reduction is not the appropriate fiscal policy in the current economic environment and few are seriously suggesting that the summit needs to produce an agreement. In other words, we don’t actually need the summit to do anything.
• This summit is happening at the start of the budget process rather than towards the end.
• There’s no stalemate that has to be resolved.
