WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, became the newest member of the Senate Budget Committee this week.

Begich picked up a vacant Democratic seat on the committee after Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., decided to leave it.

Begich adds the committee to his current assignments: the Commerce Committee, the Veterans Affairs Committee and the Armed Services Committee.

The 23 members of the Budget Committee are responsible for drafting the annual congressional budget. They also have jurisdiction over the Congressional Budget Office, the non-partisan arm of Congress that estimates the short-term and long-term effects of legislation and government policy.

The committee is led by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., who along with the top Republican on the committee, Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, recently proposed a nonpartisan debt commission to address the growing federal deficit.

That commission, which was also backed by Begich, didn’t have the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate; instead, President Barack Obama created a similar panel last month by executive order.

The bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is to make non-binding recommendations to Congress by Dec. 1 on how to balance the federal budget by 2015.