No Budget No Pay

The “No Budget, No Pay Act” would require members of Congress to forgo pay for every day after October 1 that they don’t adopt a budget and pass all of its spending bills.  Once members approved a spending plan and appropriated the money, they would start receiving paychecks again but couldn’t collect any retroactive pay.  The premise is simple: don’t do your job and you don’t get paid.

Sounds logical enough. When you are in the private sector, if you don’t do your job, you don’t get paid or worse you get fired.  We should expect the same from our elected officials.

Remarkably, Congress hasn’t passed a budget since 2009. The United States faces its most serious financial crisis and Senate Democrats could not be bothered to write a budget because budgets force people to make choices.  This has to change.  

In the longer term, we need a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution so the federal government has to balance its budget like our states do.  And in the short term, we need a new law to start the process of fiscal reform today. The “No Budget, No Pay Act” is a good start.

Sign the petition below to support the “No Budget, No Pay Act.”  You can also obtain contact information for your Senator and Member of Congress.  Please call or email them and tell them to vote for the “No Budget, No Pay Act” (S. 1981 and H.R. 3643).  You can access a sample letter here that you can cut, paste, add your own personalization and then email to your Member of Congress and Senator.

Americans develop a budget within their household.  We should be able to rely on our lawmakers to do the same for our nation.  This is a core constitutional and job responsibility.