A good government wish list for the omnibus

The holiday season is upon us, and Santa — presumably — is now in the stage of checking his list twice. So is Congress, as they attempt to pass a final budget bill before a new Congress takes over in the new year. Much like a Christmas list, the omnibus is usually filled with all sorts of goodies — but not everyone always gets what they want.

As we look ahead to two years of a divided — and what will likely be an increasingly acrimonious — Congress as the 2024 election approaches, the omnibus may be the last chance to limit the damage that the 118^th Congress can commit. It also presents an opportunity to lock in certain good government practices that have been debated for the past two years. Three particular measures spring to mind.

There has been considerable concern voiced that unless the U.S. debt ceiling is raised now, the Republican controlled House of Representatives will refuse to do so when the U.S. runs out of money to pay its debts some time next year. While Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has gone back and forth over whether his party would insist on reducing funding for Social Security and Medicare in return for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling, the threat is certainly actively spoken of within his caucus.

One wish, therefore, for the omnibus is to take the debt ceiling off the table for the next Congress. This can be done one of two ways: Either raise the debt ceiling by a sufficient amount that it does not get reached for the duration of the 118^th Congress or eliminate the debt ceiling altogether. As the Tax Policy Center noted, “It serves no useful purpose. It doesn’t contribute to fiscal discipline, and breaching it entails large, potentially, catastrophic costs.”

A second way in which the omnibus could be used to promote the protection of the general welfare is by including reform of the Electoral Count Act. The obscure statute gained prominence in 2021 when it was used to argue (incorrectly) that Vice President Pence had the authority to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Each House of Congress has its own proposed reform with the House version more tightly restricting the grounds for Congressional objections to certification of the electoral vote. Both versions would clarify the role of the Vice President in the election as purely ceremonial.

Reform of the Electoral Count Act would reduce the likelihood of a crisis similar to the one of Jan. 6, 2021. It currently has bipartisan support although it seems more likely that the weaker Senate bill will be the one included in the omnibus.

Finally, Congress could act to ensure that a future president does not replicate the efforts of President Trump to gut the merit-based civil service. Late in his term, the former president issued an executive order that would reclassify civil servants as “Schedule F,” and in doing so make it easier for presidents to fire them.

Having a civil service that is protected from political whims and serves across different presidential administrations is one of the hallmarks of modern democratic governance. Without these protections, higher level career agency officials would be unlikely to give their best advice to their political superiors and the quality of policy decision-making would quickly and severely degrade. Few things scream “good government” more loudly than prevention of a return to the spoils system of the 19^th Century.

Anyone who has made a wish list for the holidays knows that you never get everything on it. Currently it seems as if only the tamer version of Electoral Count Act will make it into the omnibus. But avoidance of financial calamity, ensuring peaceful democratic transitions, and preserving a neutral civil service shouldn’t end up on a list of wishes not granted. Congress should include all three items in the omnibus. The American public would be well served if they did.

Stuart Shapiro is professor and director of the Public Policy Program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network. Follow him on Twitter @shapiro_stuart.