It's Time to Re-Open the People's House.

• Author: Moran, Gene
• Position: Ethics Comer

* No matter one's political ideology, we can be confident that the legislation Congress considers and passes for fiscal year 2022 policy and spending will be less than it could have been. Why? Because the inputs were substandard and we mostly just went through the motions to get to an outcome.

A partial solution is within our grasp and not nearly as difficult as reforming the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) process heralded in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.

The solution: Re-open the doors of the People's House.

The federal legislative season for fiscal year 2023 has begun before resolving spending decisions for fiscal year 2022. We've been here before many times in the past decade. Balanced budget acts, fiscal cliffs, defense vs. non-defense debates, sequestration, continuing resolutions, omnibuses, minibuses and cromnibuses are just a few of the manifestations of legislative disfunction. We rebuild this house of cards annually, and we are not in a good place.

The movement to reform the PPBE process is informed at least in partial response to the excellent work of Bill Green-wait and Dan Plat at the American Enterprise Institute outlining the need for systemic reform. This effort has begun with the naming of participants in the review. This is a start. But even easier support to the process is within reach.

Awaiting federal funding is unfortunate and expensive, as borne out by numerous studies of the budget process challenges. Program offices must make sporadic spending decisions, often deferring even the most logical buying, in service to a complex rationale that should protect taxpayer interests while not overcommitting funds not yet appropriated. Industry doesn't serve shareholders well by making capital investments or pricing decisions with incomplete government buying forecasts, so it doesn't. On top of this, and in many ways worse, we can be confident that Congress did not receive the best inputs.

Each year, Congress traditionally informs itself by taking meetings from industry and agencies in the form of hundreds of hearings and thousands of informational meetings. These inputs are an essential part of the legislative process. The breadth of issues before lawmakers each year is staggering. While much of the government can and does run effectively on autopilot, a significant portion of government activity and future planning requires foresight and deliberation. This kind of planning requires quality...