Sounding Familiar
We are 18 days away from the federal government shutting down. That’s not designed to scare you, but it’s just the calendar.
The federal government’s fiscal year starts on October 1st. If they cannot come up with a budget—and that’s become the norm, regardless of who is in power, the failure to timely pass a budget—then Congress has to pass a “continuing resolution” to continue operating the government at the same funding levels for a specified time…kicking the can down the road.
They did it before the November election, pushing it ahead to December 16th. Unless Congress takes action, that resolution expires at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on that date. And there are not that many session days left before the end of the year…and the end of this Congress.
Which brings up no end of possibilities…maybe out of a spirit of public duty and finishing the job Americans sent them to do, the current Congress could come up with the set of bills to fund the government through the fiscal year, next September 30th, and do it well before the December 16 deadline. No, I don’t expect that either, but that is an option.
Another option is to kick the can down the road until after January 3, 2023…that’s when the new Congress takes over. Some Republicans will try to hold up a full budget so their party can be in the House majority…but that’s a dangerous game, given how fragile that majority will be. No picnic for Democrats, either, fearful of what a suddenly-unified GOP will do to their spending priorities.
Then there’s the shutdown option. No new continuing resolution, then parts of the government shut down a week before Christmas. Keep in mind shutting the government down and starting it back up again does not save money…in fact, if the shutdown is only a week or so, it actually costs more to shut it down for a short time. And keep in mind shutting the government down does not mean Social Security recipients won’t get their checks, it does not mean the military goes on break, etc.
Within the past decade, there was a New Year’s Eve famous for Congress remaining in session until just after the midnight hour into the new year, so they could pass the bills necessary to keep the government open. It was an embarrassing spectacle, and one which we’d do best to not repeat.
Of the options, the best we can probably hope for is another kick-the-can-down-the-road measure, to punt the problem to the new Congress. At least then there’s not a shutdown. But even getting these folks to agree on that won’t be easy.
Given the tenor of the times, I cannot imagine how this is going to play out. But my guess is there will be plenty of lumps of coal in lawmakers’ Christmas stockings this year…and they’d be well deserved.
