Let's talk about our money and what happens to the huge sums collected from taxpayers.

One of the key functions of Congress is to pass a budget, but often that seems close to

impossible. Lack of agreement over federal spending regularly threatens to bring about government

shutdowns, and they have a negative effect on millions of Americans. Yet few of us can even begin

to understand the Byzantine budget process. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley Melntite.

And I'm Richard Davies. In this show, we meet two women who worked with other policy experts

to make the federal budget process function better, simple, efficient, transparent.

Alison Acosta Winters is a fiscal conservative, and was most recently a senior policy fellow at

Americans for Prosperity. Emily Halublewitch is vice president for federal advocacy at the

American Heart Association, and she often supports more government spending. They came together

through Convergent Center for Policy Resolution, and you'll learn more about Convergence later in

the show. Ashley kicks us off. Her first question goes to Alison.

So just to start off, the current budget process involves a huge amount of money,

and it's a mess. Why does this matter so much to all of us?

Well, if you think about the role of Congress and the role of the federal government,

one of the key functions and responsibilities of Congress is to pass a budget. A budget tells

the government what it's going to do, how many resources it's going to have in any given year,

and it's important that that's done in an orderly fashion, so that key people in the executive

branch can plan and execute appropriately, accordingly, as efficiently and effectively

as possible. When you don't have that, smooth functioning of the federal budget process,

all of that becomes really difficult to do. Emily, you want to have a crack at that?

I think Alison really said it very well. It's been interesting to me working

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