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Jared Golden of Lewiston represents Maine’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. This piece was originally published on Oct. 30 in “ Dear Mainer,” Golden’s Substack. It is reposted here in its entirety, with permission.
For years, our country has been running a live experiment in out-of-balance budgets. We all know that when you spend more than you can afford, the bill eventually comes due. Our nation is now at that inflection point.
Washington has spent years cutting taxes while increasing spending, and the bill is catching up with us: Our record-breaking $40 trillion debt is driving up interest rates, making it more expensive for Americans to own a home, buy a car or start a small business.
Debt payments have grown so large that they eclipse nearly every other line item in the budget. They are crowding out investments in education, national security and other priorities — and threatening the future of Social Security and Medicare.
Alarm bells about our dangerous fiscal situation are growing louder and louder. But Congress’ budgetmaking process is so thoroughly broken that it’s unlikely we can respond as necessary without major reforms.
Consider these facts: Congress has not passed a complete budget on time for 30 years. Government shutdowns are growing longer and becoming more frequent. Trillion-dollar deficits have become the norm as neither party seems willing to make difficult choices or tradeoffs to improve our financial health. And a breakdown in our system of checks and balances has undermined Congress’ spending authority and made it harder for the parties to negotiate budget bills in good faith.
Congress needs to get serious about the debt, reform the broken budget process that got us into this mess, and start making responsible choices again. Recently, I joined two of my fellow Blue Dogs — Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Adam Gray of California — to introduce the Congressional Budget Reform Act of 2026 to get us back on track.
Our bill would tackle rising costs by getting the debt under control, end harmful government shutdowns and restore critical checks and balances in federal spending. I’m using this [column] to go over the details of the bill with you, and to explain why I think these nine reforms are crucial to getting our fiscal house in order.
Fixing the broken budget process
The last time Congress passed a complete budget on-time, “Macarena” was an international dance craze and most people connected to the internet through a dial-up modem — if they were connected at all.
At the same time that regular order has collapsed, government shutdowns have become routine and are getting longer, dragging out the pain for Americans affected by furloughs and lapses in critical programs. And President Donald Trump has exposed a loophole in our system of checks and balances that makes it too easy for a chief executive to roll back congressionally approved spending, undermining the ability of budget negotiators to bargain in good faith.
The Congressional Budget Reform Act of 2026 makes four key improvements to fix the broken budget process:
Bundle the 12 appropriations bills into four “minibuses”: Bundling will streamline the budget process, reduce bottlenecks and encourage on-time enactment of appropriations.
No more government shutdowns: This reform would enact the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, which would implement automatic, 14-day continuing resolutions in the event of any lapse in government funding. It would also require Congress to stay in session until all appropriations bills are completed.
End the fast track for impoundments in the Senate: The expedited rescission, which allows federal funding to be canceled with a simple majority rather than the 60-vote threshold required to enact it, was never used until recently. In 2025, President Trump successfully used it to rescind $9.4 billion in congressionally approved spending on a party-line vote, threatening future efforts to pass bipartisan spending bills. The Congressional Budget Reform Act of 2026 would strengthen checks and balances by requiring rescissions to achieve the same 60-vote threshold as appropriations.
Explicitly prohibit the “pocket rescission”: The “pocket rescission” is an executive maneuver in which a president waits to request a rescission until near the end of the fiscal year, causing the authorization to expire and the funding to be withheld before the congressional review period ends. In the latest example, President Trump in September used a pocket rescission to unilaterally undo $810 million in congressionally authorized spending. The legality of this move has been questioned, and Congress can clarify the law to prevent it. The Congressional Budget Reform Act of 2026 would prohibit a president from submitting rescission requests or withholding funding within 90 days of an appropriation expiring.
Strengthening fiscal guardrails
According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio is nearly 100%, with interest payments on the debt exceeding spending on education, defense, Medicaid or total non-defense discretionary spending. This level of debt, driven by tax cuts for the wealthy and increased spending, is unsustainable, threatening Social Security, Medicare and the country’s ability to respond to future crises.
The Congressional Budget Reform Act of 2026 contains three provisions to help restore fiscal stability:
Enforceable debt targets: The bill would require Congress to set debt reduction targets in the annual budget resolution and create a special reconciliation process to enforce the target if it is exceeded.
Strengthen PAYGO: Congress enacted the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act in 2010 to require offsets to new spending or tax cuts. The president’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) keeps two scorecards to track the deficit impact of spending over five- and 10-year periods. Debits on either scorecard are meant to trigger automatic spending cuts, but Congress has never allowed this to happen. The Congressional Budget Reform Act of 2026 would require the House to take a recorded vote before exempting legislation from the PAYGO Scorecard, delaying debits to future years or wiping the scorecard to zero.
Deficit Reduction Accounts: This provision would require deficit reduction accounts in appropriations bills, which would allow savings to go toward reducing the deficit, automatically lowering applicable spending allocations so those savings cannot be repurposed for other spending.
Improving information and data available to Congress
Congress is responsible for crafting fiscally responsible budgets that deliver for the American people today and build a strong foundation for a safe, prosperous future. To do that, lawmakers need the best, most up-to-date information available.
The Congressional Budget Reform Act of 2026 contains two provisions to increase transparency about the fiscal state of the nation and provide Congress with the information it needs to keep America on track:
Fiscal State of the Nation: This provision would require an annual, nonpartisan briefing in a joint hearing of the House and Senate Budget committees from the comptroller general.
Report on Fiscal Contingency Preparedness: This provision would require the Treasury Department and OMB to conduct and publish an annual assessment of the government’s fiscal resilience to major emergencies, subject to independent Government Accountability Office review.
We can turn this ship around
Congress has been off course for far too long, ignoring the warning signs of our skyrocketing deficits and debt and allowing the collapse of a budgetmaking process that could make us truly reckon with the tradeoffs necessary to get back on a path toward fiscal stability.
The House and Senate should implement these reforms before passing the next budget. By reforming the appropriations process, strengthening fiscal guardrails and improving the information and fiscal analysis available to members of Congress, I believe we can start turning this ship around.