Political science professor and federal budgeting expert Roy Meyers has been in the news recently discussing federal budget issues as the U.S. Senate has held hearings on reforming the budget process and an emergency spending bill to combat the Zika virus is being debated in Congress.
On April 13, Meyers testified before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee during a hearing on “Budgeting for Outcomes to Maximize Taxpayer Value.” The hearing was the second in a series focused on fixing the budget process and highlighted how outcome-based budgeting could improve congressional budget decisions.
On April 18, Brookings published a brief by Meyers titled “How to make budget process reform politically feasible.” In his paper, Meyers addressed what can be done to overcome barriers to budget reform that are still high.
“For advocates to overcome these barriers, they must describe how reforms will create results that politicians value. The reforms suggested in this report would increase the ability to establish strategic priorities and allocate resources towards those priorities, and that greater capacity would promote fiscal sustainability,” Meyers stated in the introduction.
In a USA Today article about the $1.9 billion emergency spending bill, Meyers commented on rhetoric surrounding the bill and how it is being perceived.
For complete coverage, see below.
April 13 hearing on Fixing Broken Budget Process (United States Senate Committee on the Budget)
How to make budget process reform politically feasible (Brookings)
Obama’s $1.9 billion Zika request: ‘Slush fund,’ or needed flexibility? (USA Today)
Image: U.S. Capitol. Photo by Kevin Burkett, CC by-SA 2.0.
Tags: CAHSS, PoliticalScience, Research
