After months of all-out budget battles, Congress faces looming deadlines to keep the federal government open—Jan. 19 to fund several key agencies and Feb. 2 to approve spending for the rest.
While underlying strife over the size and role of government continues to simmer, lawmakers can nevertheless choose to put the nation on a path to financial sustainability and sound fiscal management of taxpayer dollars.
Taxpayers deserve to get what they’re paying for—a government that responsibly and prudently delivers essential public services.
To meet this imperative, Congress should prioritize three practical approaches already on the table as it works through the latest budget impasse.
First, it should reform the budget appropriations process so that agencies receive predictable, long-term funding.
It has been nearly 30 years since lawmakers passed the full budget on time, instead choosing to hold annual appropriations hostage to settle political disputes. As a result, government shutdowns have become the norm, with agencies often relying on continuing resolutions—which provide temporary funding, generally frozen at existing levels—in the interim.
These fiscal uncertainties force agencies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on shutdown planning while relying on smaller funding installments to meet their goals—the equivalent of needing to buy a loaf of bread slice by slice rather than all at once.
This is a costly, inefficient way to do business that disrupts innovation, particularly in fields like science and technology where success typically requires multiyear projects and expenditures.
A step in the right direction is at hand: Sens. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, and Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, have introduced legislation that would require government funding to continue at existing levels, and restrict lawmakers from considering other matters and traveling, if year-long appropriations bills are not passed. Congress should enact this sensible proposal into law.
Beyond meeting its fundamental responsibility to pass a budget on time, Congress should also prioritize two reforms to ensure agencies make effective use of taxpayer dollars.
A top priority should be providing the IRS with adequate funding to fulfill its basic function to collect tax revenue.
In 2022, Congress provided in the Inflation Reduction Act $80 billion over 10 years for the IRS to modernize its services, with more than half of these funds going toward enforcing tax laws for wealthy individuals and organizations. This investment can close a tax gap that has ballooned to nearly $700 billion without raising taxes on anyone.
However, Congress has already cut one-quarter of this $80 billion and proposed further reductions when it should be doing just the opposite.
While debates over tax policy are part of the political process, ensuring that the law is fairly enforced is good for democracy and good for fiscal well-being. The IRS is responsible for collecting 96 percent of our nation’s federal revenue, funds that are used to keep our food safe, manage air travel, care for our country’s veterans, respond to national emergencies and more. Preventing additional cuts and providing the IRS with adequate annual appropriations to enforce the tax code would ensure our government secures the public funds it is due to manage these essential services.
To further strengthen the nation’s financial integrity, agencies also need the right financial management talent.
Today, there are chief financial officers in just seven of the 16 major agencies with CFO positions requiring Senate confirmation.
These vacancies are troubling given the nearly $250 billion in payment errors agencies made in fiscal year 2022, as well as the trillions they currently administer through landmark legislation like the IRA, the bipartisan infrastructure law, and the CHIPS and Science Act.
To fix this issue, Congress should reduce the number of positions requiring Senate confirmation and allow agencies to fill CFO positions with qualified career civil servants who serve across administrations.
No organization can deliver great results without a predictable, long-term budget, the ability to collect the resources it’s owed and strong financial management talent.
The U.S. government is no exception, and it is time for Congress to step up to these priorities. Improving the use of taxpayer dollars is not about big government versus small government—it’s about effective government. We all win when agencies use public resources wisely, and that’s what lawmakers should focus on as they navigate partisan divides on spending. Anything less would handicap government and shortchange taxpayers.
Max Stier is president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The views expressed here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of their respective organizations.