The 114th Congress begins this week, marking an opportunity for a fresh start to tackle old problems. The 112th and 113th Congresses both made lots of news fighting over the budget, giving us everything from the failed supercommittee in 2011 to the government shutdown in 2013. The new Congress includes new faces and for the first time in four years, both chambers have majorities of the same party.

With these new circumstances, there is a long list of things for Congress to do, but today I want to focus on the key steps this Congress can take to move the country towards a more productive debate about the federal budget.

• Make a serious effort to reform the tax code. One of the few areas of consensus in Washington is that the tax code is long overdue for reform. In the last Congress, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, presided over working groups to shape proposals for tax reform. As one of his last acts in Congress, Camp introduced a comprehensive reform bill. The new Congress should continue these efforts and go further – holding hearings and clearly explaining to the public the options for reform and the potential consequences of those reforms, if not actually passing a bill in this Congress.
• Pass the fiscal year 2016 spending bills through regular order and on-time. It’s been more than 20 years since all 12 appropriations bills have been passed individually and sent to the president’s desk before the start of the next fiscal year. While there remains unfinished business for fiscal year 2015 for the Department of Homeland Security, the great benefit of the “cromnibus” is that it allows the 114th Congress to look forward. On-time appropriations bills allow agencies to plan, to operate efficiently, and to be held accountable. American taxpayers deserve better than bickering and delay.
• Swear off budget gimmicks. While the opening debate of this Congress highlighted the deeply held differences of opinion on topics on “dynamic scoring” – a topic so technocratic it makes many eyes glaze over – there are lots of other budget practices where Congress should seek bipartisan agreement that favor clarity over obfuscation. Swearing off tricks like pension smoothing, and loopholes like the Overseas Contingency Operations slush fund would be two good places to start. Difficult as the task of avoiding gimmicks might be, it would indicate Congress is serious about addressing problems.

Solving our budgetary challenges depends not just on what the new Congress does, but how it does it. Despite one party control of the body, lasting policy change is best achieved by garnering support from both parties and many different regions of the country. I hope that the members of this Congress will come together to demonstrate a willingness to find policies that bring together folks from across the political spectrum. Often, the way to do that is find a policy many people can agree to but for very different reasons. We’ll never have a Congress filled with 535 people who agree on every policy or the reasons to change policies, and that is probably a good thing. But we need the new Congress to look for ways to work together to move forward.