The Budget Reform Act of 2025 mandates public CBO models, institutes zero-based budgeting for agencies, shifts the federal budget to a biennial cycle, and tightens Senate procedural rules for fiscal legislation.
Roger Marshall
Senator
KS
The Budget Reform Act of 2025 mandates sweeping changes to federal fiscal policy, including making Congressional Budget Office models public, requiring executive agencies to use zero-based budgeting, and shifting the entire appropriations process to a biennial schedule. Furthermore, the bill tightens Senate procedural rules to make it harder to waive budget controls and updates the technical definition of the budget baseline. These reforms aim to increase transparency, scrutinize spending, and enforce long-term fiscal planning across the government.
Federal Budget Overhaul: Biennial Planning, Zero-Based Spending, and CBO's New Transparency Mandate
The aptly named Budget Reform Act of 2025 is less about funding the government and more about ripping out the engine of the entire federal budget process and replacing it with a new, two-year model. This isn’t just tweaking the numbers; it fundamentally changes how every federal agency justifies its existence, how Congress spends money, and how the non-partisan scorekeepers (the CBO) do their math.
CBO: Show Your Work, Seriously
For anyone who has ever rolled their eyes at a CBO score, Title I is for you. It’s forcing the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to put its cards on the table. Under SEC. 101, the CBO must now make its fiscal models, policy models, and all the data preparation routines public on its website. But here’s the kicker: for every cost estimate they produce, they must release the underlying data and computations in a way that allows people outside the CBO to replicate the estimate themselves. This is a massive transparency win for watchdogs, academics, and anyone who wants to verify the numbers behind major legislation. If the CBO says a bill costs $2 trillion, you’ll be able to download the spreadsheet and see how they got there. This requirement sets a high bar for data sharing that could be challenging for the CBO to meet, especially when dealing with proprietary or confidential data.
Zero-Based Budgeting: Justify Every Nickel
Title II introduces a major administrative earthquake for the Executive Branch: Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB). Starting immediately, every department and agency (except those handling Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) must submit budget requests that justify every activity as if its funding started at zero. Agencies must propose three funding levels, with at least two being lower than their current year’s funding, and explain what they could achieve at each level (SEC. 201). Think about your job: instead of assuming your salary and department budget are safe, you’d have to write a report every year explaining why your role shouldn't be eliminated entirely, and what the company would lose if you got a 20% or 40% pay cut. This places an enormous, immediate analytical burden on agencies, forcing them to prioritize ruthlessly and potentially slowing down the entire budget preparation process.
The Shift to a Two-Year Budget Cycle
The biggest structural change is in Title III, which switches the entire federal budgeting and appropriations process from an annual cycle to a biennial (two-year) cycle, starting with the budget for Fiscal Year 2028 (SEC. 341). This means Congress will set spending targets for a two-year period, and appropriations bills must fund both years simultaneously (SEC. 304). The idea is to reduce the annual brinkmanship and allow agencies to plan long-term. For a federal contractor or a state program relying on federal grants, this could mean two years of funding certainty instead of one. However, the legislation also introduces strict new deadlines, moving the budget resolution adoption date up to March 15th of the odd-numbered year (SEC. 302).
No Budget, No Travel: The Enforcement Hammer
To ensure everyone plays ball, the bill introduces punitive measures tied to missed deadlines. If the President’s budget is late, high-level political employees face a ban on using federal funds for official travel until the budget is submitted (SEC. 321). Even the President’s travel expenses are restricted (SEC. 322). Congress isn't spared: SEC. 324 states that if either the House or Senate misses a key budget deadline, federal funds cannot be used for travel for any Member of the body that missed the deadline until the task is completed. This is a direct, practical consequence for procedural failure, turning missed deadlines into a literal grounding for lawmakers and senior staff.
Senate Rules Just Got a Lot Harder
Title IV makes it significantly more difficult to bypass procedural rules in the Senate. Currently, many budget-related points of order (rules designed to enforce fiscal discipline) can be waived with a three-fifths vote (60 Senators). SEC. 401 raises that threshold to a two-thirds vote (67 Senators). This change dramatically empowers the minority party, making it much harder to pass budget resolutions, reconciliation bills, or other fiscally significant legislation without broad, bipartisan consensus. Raising the bar this high could increase gridlock, potentially forcing more essential spending into emergency measures or continuing resolutions. Furthermore, SEC. 402 creates a “surgical strike” rule, allowing Senators to remove specific provisions from bills or conference reports if they haven't been reviewed by the Senate Budget Committee, giving that committee significant new control over the legislative process.