# Budget Process Enhancement Act: Plain Language Summary

This bill tries to push Congress to do its job on budgeting by creating financial consequences for members who don't meet deadlines. Specifically, it makes two major changes to how the federal government handles budgets and holds elected officials accountable.

The first part changes how the government calculates its spending baseline—basically, the starting point for figuring out how much money to spend each year. Currently, the government automatically adjusts spending estimates upward to account for inflation and other factors. This bill removes that automatic adjustment, meaning future spending would be calculated based on current spending levels without any built-in increases. This could make it harder to maintain current services as costs naturally rise over time, since any spending increase would have to be explicitly approved rather than happening automatically.

The second part creates a penalty system for Congress members. If either the House or Senate doesn't agree on a budget plan by April 15, 2023, members' paychecks get held in escrow (essentially frozen in a separate account) starting April 16. The money stays frozen until either the chamber passes a budget or Congress ends that year. Members would eventually get all their money, but they'd have to wait. The bill also creates a separate penalty for top budget officials at the White House: if the President doesn't submit a required budget on time, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and their deputies lose their pay during the delay—with no option to get back pay later. The goal is to create real pressure on both Congress and the White House to meet their budget responsibilities on time.

Budget Process Enhancement Act

Biggs, Andy

Budget Process Enhancement Act This bill modifies the federal budget process to withhold the salaries of Members of Congress and cancel the salaries of certain employees of the Office of Management and Budget when certain budget process requirements are not met. The bill also changes the assumptions that the Congressional Budget Office uses to calculate its baseline for discretionary spending to eliminate certain adjustments for inflation and other factors. (A baseline is a projection of federal spending and receipts during a fiscal year under current law.)