Congress keeps managing to avoid a federal government shutdown, but often only barely. This Congress, time and trust for keeping regular programs going has been consumed by the majority party’s sweeping and polarizing attempts to grow the federal government.
This clash has largely derailed the annual appropriations process that was supposed to be finished in September, and another funding deadline looms on February 18th. Yet shutdown showdowns don’t have to happen.
Government shutdowns are an unintended result of complicated budget laws. They disrupt programs and services that benefit the American people. They undermine Congress and federal agencies. It’s time for Congress to prevent them, once and for all, with automatic continuing resolutions.
The federal government never had a shutdown before 1981. They only occurred after President Jimmy Carter’s attorney general released a (correct) interpretation of the Anti-Deficiency Act. This law says that the executive branch may not spend money unless Congress has said it can.
Congressional control of the budget — the power of the purse — is a foundation of representative government. But the Anti-Deficiency Act originated with the Civil War, and Congress was fine with letting approved programs continue despite a delay (“lapse”) in renewed spending authority for more than a century prior to the decision that led to shutdowns.
The modern threat of shutdowns has made the congressional budget cycle worse, not better. The threat of shutdowns leads factions of members — sometimes entire parties — to seek leverage for policies that many other members strongly oppose. Leaders have exercised increasing control over the process to try to impose order on the chaos, but it isn’t working.
Congress hasn’t passed all appropriations bills they’re required to pass by the start of the new fiscal year since 1996, according to the Congressional Research Service. Ideally, Congress would complete the annual process before the August recess, as the authors of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 intended. That way, executive branch agencies would have time to plan and prepare before carrying out the year’s activities.
When this fiscal year began in October, Congress avoided a shutdown with a short-term continuing resolution into December. In December, Congress continued funding through mid-February despite high inflation.
Now that Congress is trying again, the likely scenario is well-established: Congressional leaders strike a deal with the White House on omnibus appropriations legislation, and then they’ll add various special-interest, deficit-increasing extenders and miscellaneous other changes to programs. Then they’ll force members to rubber stamp a massive bill they haven’t had time to review. Yet again, the vast majority of members will have no ability to shape the legislation or even to deliberate on ways to improve it.
Leadership-driven omnibus deals aren’t the only poor results from the threat of shutdowns. Ad hoc continuing resolutions are also damaging, though much less so. They allow routine activities, but they usually have too much uncertainty for agencies to embark on many major projects or upgrades due to the restrictions of the Anti-Deficiency Act. On the other hand, automatic continuing resolutions could let agencies plan.
Frequent, high-stakes congressional budget battles exhaust members’ and staff’s willingness to think about budget policy. Most have little time and energy left over to think about fixing the system, especially with all the other demands on them.
Ultimately, surviving the next deadline is an uninspiring goal. Congress needs an annual process that promotes improving value for the American people each time. That means adjusting priorities as society and the world change.
An automatic continuing resolution would help Congress budget smarter. Members would know that the next budget cycle should improve on the status quo, so they’d focus more on what most of their colleagues can support and less on unrealistic visions of leveraging the process for other goals.
Government shutdowns have always been based on a mistake. Congress can fix that error at any time. Preventing shutdowns would improve the appropriations process, could include many more members in shaping outcomes, and would help break the cycle of brinkmanship and polarization in the annual budget process.
Kurt Couchman is a senior fellow in fiscal policy at Americans for Prosperity.