Blue Dog Coalition Unveils Budget Process Reform Package

Representatives Jared Golden (D-ME), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), and Adam Gray (D-CA) – leaders in the House Blue Dog Coalition – recently introduced the Congressional Budget Reform Act of 2026, a package of nine fiscal reform proposals. They put the reforms into three main categories: fixing the broken budget process, strengthening fiscal guardrails, and improving information and data available to Congress.

We have supported and previously written about many of the proposals in the Congressional Budget Reform Act of 2026, such as a separate vote on waiving statutory PAYGO, the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, Fiscal State of the Nation, and the Fiscal Contingency Preparedness Act, some of which have been championed by members of the Bipartisan Fiscal Forum.

Fixing the Broken Budget Process

The bill would require the House Appropriations Committee to bundle the 12 appropriations bills into four packages for markup once they had all passed their respective subcommittees. The goal is to have four three-bill minibuses and reduce the amount of time it takes to move the appropriations proposals through the legislative process. Congress has not lived up to the stated intention of enacting each appropriations bill individually in decades and has not passed all appropriations bills into law before the start of the fiscal year in 30 years.

The package also incorporates the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, which would implement automatic continuing resolutions until lawmakers can reach an agreement on appropriations and create other incentives for the timely completion of appropriations work. We have long supported automatic continuing resolutions because government shutdowns are wasteful, unnecessary, and a distraction from focusing on sustainable budgeting.

Additionally, the bill would remove the Senate’s expedited floor procedures for rescission bills, in practice subjecting rescission bills to the same 60-vote threshold needed to complete appropriations bills. Currently, rescission requests only require a simple majority to pass. Eliminating the expedited rescission process would be a mistake given that there is plenty of wasteful spending for lawmakers to cut, and expedited rescissions can be a useful tool in doing so.

The final provision in this bucket of the package would aim to strengthen Congress’s power of the purse. The proposal would prohibit the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from withholding or deferring relevant funding within 90 days of an appropriations expiration. This change aims to stop the executive branch from withholding funds until they expire without Congressional approval, a practice known as a “pocket rescission,” which the Government Accountability Office (GAO) considers illegal.

Strengthening Fiscal Guardrails

The bill would require Congress to set either debt-to-GDP or deficit-to-GDP targets in the budget resolution. By February 15 each year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) would produce a report showing if the country is on track to meet the final-year target Congress set in the most recent budget resolution. If not, there would be a special Senate reconciliation process intended to bring law closer to the goals Congress set, which would be prohibited from increasing the deficit, similar to the process in the 2019 Bipartisan Congressional Budget Reform Act that we've previously supported.

Including deficit-to-GDP information in the budget and creating an accountability process would help lawmakers set a reasonable fiscal goal like the 3% deficit-to-GDP target endorsed by the Blue Dog Coalition and supported by the board of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The 3% deficit target has also attracted broad support from organizations across the ideological spectrum and within the House and Senate.

On Statutory PAYGO, the bill would require that exemptions from or modifications to the PAYGO scorecard be considered as separate legislation with recorded votes in the House and Senate. Provisions exempting legislation from PAYGO are often tucked into must-pass legislation, making it harder for members to stand up for fiscal discipline. Between 2010 and 2025, more than $10 trillion has been excluded either because of exemptions included in the original Statutory PAYGO Act (including provisions designated as emergencies) or because of PAYGO exemptions included in new spending or tax laws. A recorded vote on a separate bill could make members publicly own their decision to add to the debt, instead of letting those costs slip through as part of larger legislative packages.

Lastly, the bill would create deficit-reduction accounts in each appropriations bill, making it easier for lawmakers to apply savings toward deficit reduction and discouraging them from repurposing those savings for other spending.

Improving Information and Data Available to Congress

Two provisions in the bill aim to give lawmakers and the public a better picture of the nation’s fiscal state. The first creates an annual Fiscal State of the Nation address, a concept that has attracted broad, bipartisan support. Versions of it have been introduced before, including the Fiscal State of the Nation Act and the Fiscal State of the Nation Resolution. Under the Congressional Budget Reform Act, the Comptroller General would appear before a joint meeting of the House and Senate and deliver a briefing on the financial statement of the executive branch and the financial position and condition of the federal government.

The second provision incorporates the Fiscal Contingency Preparedness Act, which would implement “fiscal stress tests” through annual assessments of the federal government's resilience to potential emergencies such as economic downturns, energy crises, and national security threats. Specifically, the Treasury Department, in coordination with OMB, would conduct these tests, and GAO would conduct and publish an independent review. These fiscal stress tests could help policymakers identify fiscal vulnerabilities and make proactive decisions to address those weaknesses.

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Process reform alone will not put the debt on a more sustainable path, but a functioning budget process would make it easier to get there.

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, praised the bill’s introduction this Congress:

We appreciate the Blue Dog Coalition putting forward the Congressional Budget Reform Act. The legislation includes multiple reforms to strengthen transparency and accountability in the federal budget process. Exploding deficits are an affordability issue, and reducing them can help temper inflation, lower everyday costs, and boost incomes over time. Process reforms cannot substitute for the hard policy choices lawmakers will ultimately have to make. Still, this bill would be a step in the right direction by helping reduce the crisis-driven nature of the current budget process and enhancing the tools available to hold lawmakers accountable. We look forward to continuing to work with the Blue Dog Coalition to improve the nation’s fiscal outlook.