WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) teamed up with Senators John Thune (R-S.D.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) to introduce bipartisan legislation Wednesday to provide for detailed analysis of how Congressional budgets and major pieces of new legislation would impact future generations. The Intergenerational Financial Obligations Reform (INFORM) Act would also require the president to provide a detailed accounting of how the administration’s budget would affect young people.

The bill would ensure that Congress and the administration have the tools necessary to better evaluate the effect that changes in taxes, spending policies, and future economic advancements will have on the fiscal health of the country and on individual Americans 20, 50, or even 75 years down the road.  It would also require the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office to provide an annual analysis of the long-term impact high levels of debt will have on future generations. This approach, which is known as a ‘generational accounting and fiscal gap analysis,’ would examine the full scope of the government’s obligations, present and future, and then look at the effect those obligations will have on current and future generations.

“Our growing debt and increasingly dangerous deficits mean Washington must be smarter about how it considers the implications of the spending choices it makes,” Senator Coons said. “The current system just is not set up to take future generations’ interests into account, when in reality, the budget decisions Washington makes today have as much, if not more, of a fiscal impact on our kids as they do on us. This bill would provide Washington with the tools to consider those impacts and really give young people and future generations a seat at the table as these choices are being made.”

“For too long, politicians have kicked the can down the road by relying on deficit spending to pay for growth in government, and today’s young people face a mounting burden of debt that will have to be repaid,” Senator Thune said. “Young Americans in their 20s and 30s, and the generations who will follow them, are already facing the near certainty of higher taxes and lower benefits as a result of the debt we’ve piled up. It is far past time that young adults have a voice in Washington and it starts with Congress being transparent about the long-term impacts of budgets and major legislation.” 

Under current practice, Congress is typically provided with information about the budgetary impacts of spending and policy decisions only over the next 10 years. The INFORM Act would allow Congress and the administration to look at the effect that changes in the economy, or in spending or taxes, would have on Americans 20, 50, or even 75 years down the road. The concept of generational accounting was originally proposed in the 1990s and was used as a budget analysis tool during parts of the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. 

“As we look to make tough budget decisions, more information is critical to making prudent fiscal choices,” Senator Kaine said. “A better understanding of the long term impacts of changes in the economy, or new spending and tax policies, will help us evaluate these programs with the important perspective of how those decisions will affect future generations, not just our own.”

“Our nation’s youth should not be forced to pay the price of big-government run amuck,” Senator Portman said.  “It’s time for Washington’s pattern of reckless spending to come to an end so that future generations are not unfairly weighed down by a mountain of debt.  By requiring Congress to be up-front about the long-term financial effects of legislation, this bill will help curb wasteful spending and open up opportunities for our children and grandchildren.” 

“The federal budget is dangerously skewed toward the present, at the expense of the future,” Nick Troiano, co-founder of The Can Kicks Back, said. “Our campaign has championed the INFORM Act because it will give lawmakers additional information to help ensure that policy changes promote long-term fiscal sustainability and generational equity.”

Ten 10 Nobel Prize winning economists have endorsed the bill.

The legislation can be downloaded as a PDF here: http://coons.senate.gov/download/inform-act-legislation