Sponsor
Andrew S. Biggs
Representative · R-AZ
Representative · R-AZ
The bill tightens baseline scoring and increases procedural oversight to restrain automatic budget growth and incentivize faster congressional agreement, but it risks eroding real program funding, invites reclassification incentives, and creates pay disruptions and administrative burdens for federal personnel.
Taxpayers: Projected spending baselines will exclude emergency and supplemental resources, slowing automatic baseline growth and making future baseline estimates more conservative.
Congress/OMB: Baseline scoring rules are simplified by removing multiple enumerated paragraphs and banning automatic inflation adjustments, making budget scoring and transparency easier to understand and apply.
Members of Congress: Preventing automatic payment of congressional salaries during a budget lapse increases pressure on Members to reach a budget agreement and may speed negotiations.
Millions of program beneficiaries and federal employees: Freezing baseline values (no automatic inflation adjustments) will erode real funding over time, reducing program capacity, forcing service cuts or requiring disruptive near-term appropriations to maintain services.
Congress and budget integrity: Excluding emergency and supplemental funding from baselines creates an incentive to reclassify ordinary spending as 'emergency' to bypass caps, complicating long-term planning and weakening budget discipline.
Members of Congress, staff, and certain OMB/administration officials: Escrowing or suspending pay during statutory noncompliance or budget lapses delays access to earned wages, can create cash-flow hardship, and may permanently bar retroactive pay for affected periods.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Narrows excluded baseline resources, bars inflation adjustments to those exclusions, requires escrow of Members' pay if no FY2026 concurrent budget is agreed by April 15, 2025, and authorizes IG review with pay sanctions for certain OMB officials.
Official title: To remove the discretionary inflater from the baseline and to provide that the salaries of Members of a House of Congress will be held in escrow if that House has not agreed to a concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2026, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 3, 2025 by Andrew S. Biggs · Last progress January 3, 2025
Changes to federal budget rules narrow which baseline resources are excluded when calculating certain budget treatments and prohibit inflation or other adjustments to those baseline exclusions. It also creates an enforcement mechanism that withholds Members' pay into escrow if Congress fails to agree to a concurrent budget resolution for FY2026 by April 15, 2025, and authorizes the OPM Inspector General to verify whether the President and OMB complied with budget submission rules and to withhold pay for specified OMB officials during periods of noncompliance. The bill modifies a technical baseline provision of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, removes several existing paragraphs in that provision, and establishes procedures and deadlines for escrow of congressional pay, tax withholding rules during escrow, Treasury and payroll administrator responsibilities, and limited pay sanctions for OMB leadership found noncompliant with budget submission law. Some provisions take effect immediately on enactment for administrative enforcement steps.