As I travel around Maryland’s First Congressional District, neighbors and constituents are never shy about sharing their opinion of Congress. It’s clear from these conversations that there is a deep and growing lack of trust among voters toward Congress, and as I reflect back on my first year in Washington, I have to say that I can understand why. For years now, regardless of which party has controlled Congress, “business as usual” in Washington has come to mean unbalanced budgets, inadequate oversight, and abuses of the legislative process.
On Wednesday, President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address to Congress and the American public, laying out both his assessment of where we stand and his agenda for the next year. But I believe that any discussion of policy goals must first begin with a call for broader reform of the way Congress does business. In advance of Wednesday’s State of the Union speech, here are elements of the reform agenda that I believe must be a priority in 2010.
Budget reform. In my first year in office, I was proud to support Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) budget rules requiring any bill that increases spending or decreases revenue to also identify where the money is going to come from to pay for it. Moving forward, we must now also implement meaningful discretionary spending caps, which would limit under the law the maximum allowable year-to-year increase in discretionary spending. Taken together, spending caps and PAYGO laws helped create the budget surpluses of the 1990’s, and restoring these common-sense policies would be an important step in restoring fiscal sanity to Washington. I am currently drafting legislation to establish these binding discretionary spending caps, which will be a top priority of mine in 2010.
Tax reform. In addition to budget reform, tax reform is also on my agenda for 2010. Our federal tax code is a mess of loopholes and carve outs, and we’re long overdue for a comprehensive review to determine which of these credits are working and which aren’t. We need to re-focus our tax code to make sure middle class families and small businesses are getting a fair deal. I have introduced a bill to encourage the creation of new small businesses by increasing the small business tax deduction for startup costs from $5,000 to $20,000. Common sense ideas like this are a smart way to encourage job growth to support our continued economic recovery.
Appropriations reform. Abhorrent abuses of taxpayer funds like the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” rightly draw the outrage of lawmakers and the public, but the response to abuses like this should be to reform the appropriations process, not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We need to find a way to root out the abuses and the waste without also threatening funding of important local priorities, like much-needed improvements to U.S. 404 or beach replenishment efforts to protect property, jobs, and economic activity in Ocean City. Earmark reform means more accountability and more transparency, which is why I am working on legislation to require audits for earmarks to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being targeted as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Legislative reform. At the same time we’re pursuing these policy goals, we also need to fix the rules under which Congress reviews and passes bills. I agree with critics who say that Congress sometimes moves too fast on legislation, and this has been one of my biggest frustrations in my first year in office. At times I have been successful in slowing down this pace, as in July when I joined with colleagues in both parties in convincing House Leadership not to force a vote on health care reform legislation until after the August recess. However, the rules must be changed to guarantee adequate time for review and consideration of all bills, both by lawmakers and the public. A bill I have co-sponsored would require all legislation to be posted online at least 72 hours before a final vote, and I am also working on a broader proposal to ensure appropriate consideration periods for amendments and other substantive proposals.
As Washington prepares for Wednesday’s State of the Union address, there will be a lot of discussion about what policies the President and Congress should pursue in the year ahead. I believe that reform must be the centerpiece of this agenda, and it will certainly be the central focus of my own efforts in Congress in 2010.