What really happened last week is this: Congress didn’t fail to pass a Continuing Resolution, Congress failed to pass a budget.
The federal government’s fiscal year begins on October 1st. If the government is functioning properly, a total budget, with 12 separate budget bills, would have moved through the various committees of Congress, been passed by both the House and Senate, been de-conflicted in joint committees, and sent to the President for signature, and signed by midnight, September 30th. Every year.
Who says? Well, the Constitution. And a host of laws. It is, in essence, the real job of Congress: pass laws to protect the nation and provide for the general welfare, and appropriate money to accomplish that.
There should be 12 Bills: 1) Agriculture and the FDA; 2) Commerce, Justice and Science; 3) Defense; 4) Energy; 5) Financial Services and General Government; 6) Homeland Security; 7) Interior; 8) Labor, HHS and Education; 9) Legislative Branch; 10) Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; 11) State and Foreign Operations; 12) Transportation and HUD.
These cover all federal government activities. Each – individually – moves through subcommittee hearings and committee hearings, are voted on in both the House and Senate, a joint committee works out differences, the final bills are then approved, and then the President signs them.
All before October 1st.
It’s been a long time since that’s happened. In the last 40 years Congress managed to pass all the budget bills on time only in 1977, 1989, 1995 and 1997. Remember, this is Congress’s #1 job.
When Congress fails to complete the regular appropriations bills on time we operate under what are known as Continuing Resolutions (CR), bills passed by Congress to continue funding the government at the same rates as the previous year’s budget, within any or all of the above 12 areas.
But, once you’re operating under a CR, a sense of crisis develops, with calls to “pass a budget” and start work on next year’s budget. The end result is an “omnibus” spending bill where-in all necessary appropriations are wrapped up into one gigantic bill and pushed through, usually at the last minute, with any effort to refine the bill painted as obstructionist. The 2017 omnibus appropriations bills – due on President Obama’s desk no later than September 30th 2016 but released May 1st 2017 – totaled $1.16 trillion.
In 2007, 2011 and 2013 we had CRs that lasted more than 15 months — in short, we never passed any real budget at all.
Walter J. Oleszek, of the Congressional Research Service, adjunct professor of government at American University, offers:
These omnibus bills grant large powers to a small number of people who put these packages together – party and committee leaders and top executive officials. Omnibus measures usually arouse the irk of the rank-and-file members of Congress because typically little time is available in the final days of a session to debate these massive measures or to know what is in them.
Yet, the Senate has rules, generated by the Senate – the Constitution is silent on internal process except to say each house of Congress will establish its own rules – that require 60 votes for passing spending bills. The argument has been made that such a 3/5th majority will make it that much more difficult for the Congress to increase spending. (Take a look at our national debt, and our unfunded annuities, and ask yourself how well that’s worked out.)
Nowhere in the Constitution is there any word about filibuster, super majority, or any other special rules. Such concepts were and are the creation of people enamored with using parliamentary procedures to preserve both structure and supposedly to preserve collegiality during debate. Again, I would ask how well has that worked out?
We face an increasingly dangerous world – China’s power-hungry regime, a nuclear-armed North Korea, resurgent Russia, nuclear proliferation, Islamic terrorism, etc. – and our national security apparatus needs budgetary stability to plan ahead, forecasting procurement and operations within a well-defined budget.
Insisting on collegiality when there is none, and thereby sacrificing the basics of good governing, has led to this situation, and holding defense and security interests hostage to an immigration issue, is unconscionable. It’s time the leadership of the House and Senate, particularly the Senate, threw out arbitrary rules that slow the budgetary process, and force Congress to perform its basic functions and pass budgets on time. They’re already falling behind on the next budget.
Copyright 2018 Arrias
www.vicsocotra.com
Editor’s Note: I normally put these comments up front, but as it turns out, Arrias told me he really needed another 600 words to complete his thoughts. They are cogent and formidable. This morning seems like a good opportunity to add some of mine. As a Hill veteran of the 105th Congress and four years as a budget staff director, I was taught to respect Regular Order (“RO”), the process violated by what is presented above. RO means all the appropriations of the Congress, (revenue bills must rise in the House), are first authorized and then scrutinized in all particulars before being approved by Appropriations committees of jurisdiction and then sent to the Senate for a similar two-step process with at least a modicum of transparency. And then back to a joint conference to ensure there hadn’t been too many funny things inserted in the sausage factory.
We haven’t done that a decade. Congress has always been a fractious place, but this “Continuing Resolution” nonsense is destroying the ability of good people in Government (some remain) to do their jobs in an ordered manner with reasonable oversight.The way we do it now, is that the whole Federal Budget is presented as a big trash bag filled with the whole complex enterprise of the nation, levied by rule at equal funding from the last time they did this. Currently, that could be only a few weeks ago. And the Big Deal of the morning means we are going to do this again in three weeks.
For those of us who worked on the budgets of the past, that process simply doesn’t work, and we would have lost our jobs, or if we had played some of the games being played of late, in the hoosegow. I fear for what is left of the Republic.
At some point, we have to hold The Swamp accountable to do their jobs.
– Ed