Joint Committees

Joint committees include members of both chambers and are created by law or concurrent resolution. Four are permanent today: the Joint Economic Committee, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Joint Committee on the Library, and the Joint Committee on Printing. None has authority to report legislation to the floor. Leadership typically alternates between a senator and a representative with each new Congress.

The most consequential is the Joint Committee on Taxation, created in 1926. Its nonpartisan staff of economists, lawyers, and accountants produces the official revenue estimates for every tax bill Congress considers, a role as important to tax legislation as the Congressional Budget Office is to spending. The Joint Economic Committee, created by the Employment Act of 1946, holds hearings and publishes analysis on the economy. The Library and Printing committees oversee the Library of Congress and the Government Publishing Office.

Joint committees were once more powerful. The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War during the Civil War investigated Union generals and pressed Lincoln on war policy, and the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, from 1946 to 1977, had unusual legislative authority over the nation's nuclear programs. Congress has also created temporary joint committees, such as the 2011 Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the so-called supercommittee, whose failure to agree triggered automatic spending cuts.