WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a member of the Senate Budget Committee, today appeared before the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform.

“I came to Washington 11 and a half years ago, and one of the focuses was on fiscal issues. And what I’ve learned is that Democrats and Republicans both like to spend money. They just like to spend it on different things,” said Corker. “I became a member of the [Senate] Budget Committee a few years ago… It’s nothing but a political tool each side uses. There’s no policy put behind the changes, and as I’ve said to Senator Perdue and others, Senator Whitehouse, we ought to actually do away with the budget committee because it performs no useful function as it relates to causing us to be fiscally sound.”

“Secondly, we major in the minors,” added Corker. “There’s all this talk about appropriations, so we spend the entire year focusing on 30 percent of what we spend, which, again, is majoring in the minors. Seventy percent of the money we spend is on mandatory spending. These are programs that people are counting on, especially during the latter years of their life. We do nothing whatsoever to ensure that they’re going to be fiscally sound.”

Corker provided the joint committee with budget reform recommendations and discussed how the current process lacks a forcing mechanism to ensure the policies outlined in the budget are implemented.

“I think you’ve got a big task. I would say, first of all, put everything on-budget. Everything. Look at combining the operations of both [the] authorizing and appropriating [committees]. Do away with the budget committee and let a few leaders decide what the [spending] caps are going to be over the next couple of years. And quit using the budget itself as a political tool,” recommended Corker.

“The problem is … we use [budget] reconciliation with 50 votes, but it takes 60 votes in the Senate to put policies in place. So, there’s never policy follow-up to the budget proposals,” concluded Corker. “So, both sides are guilty of huge deficits. Both sides like to spend money, just on different things. But the processes we have will never, as they are now constructed, do the things we want to do as a country.”