National Women's Law Center

The FY 09 budget would change the rules for setting the federal budget. These new budget rules would severely limit spending for services vital to women and their families for years to come, while promoting even more unaffordable tax cuts for the wealthy few.

Under the Administration's proposed budget rules, any increase in the cost of entitlement programs, such as Medicaid, Medicare, or Food Stamps, would have to be paid for by cuts in other services. The rules would prohibit financing improvements in these programs by raising revenue-for example, by closing tax loopholes.
Under the proposed rules, the cost of new tax cuts, including the multi-trillion dollar cost of renewing the Bush tax cuts, would not have to be paid for.
To hide this embarrassing reality, the Administration is proposing a change in budget rules which would make it appear as if making the tax cuts permanent would cost nothing! Under the proposed budget rule, the enormous cost of making the tax cuts permanent would be reported as zero, because the Congressional Budget Office would be forced to assume that the tax cuts had already been made permanent.
The Administration proposes to freeze discretionary spending at the levels proposed in the 2009 Budget, resulting in cuts in real spending and reductions in services over the next five years. The spending cap would be enforced by across-the-board spending cuts: if legislation passes that exceeds this cap, that legislation would trigger a "sequester," or an automatic reduction, in non-exempt discretionary programs.
In addition to the Medicare cuts proposed in the budget, the Administration is proposing automatic, steadily increasing cuts to Medicare if the Medicare Trustees forecast that general revenue expenditures for Medicare will exceed 45 percent of Medicare's total expenditures.
The budget renews the President's request for line-item veto power, a proposal that raises serious constitutional questions.
In addition, the Administration seeks the power to redesign or eliminate programs authorized by Congress-without going through the inconvenient process of getting Congress to change the law. The budget states, "Today, proposals to restructure or consolidate programs or agencies so they can perform better require a change in law and often face long odds of being enacted due to a cumbersome process that requires approval from multiple congressional committees." To get around the messiness of the democratic process, with all its checks and balances, the Administration proposes the creation of a "Results Commission" and a "Sunset Commission" which would have the power to restructure or eliminate programs in accordance with the Administration's preferences.

Past budget rules designed to control deficits, and the rules adopted by the 110th Congress, have restrained both new spending and new tax cuts. In contrast, instead of promoting a responsible budget process, the rules proposed in the President's budget would distort it, and lock in the distorted priorities in the President's budget for years to come.