America’s fiscal stewards have left their stations 

The good news is that Congress avoided a government shutdown by passing a continuing resolution the other week, which President Joe Biden signed. So the federal tap will keep flowing, mostly at the same level, although the statute does provide extra dollars for the Ukrainian fight against Russia, the resettlement of Afghani refugees, and other matters. 

Expirations of appropriations do not, as some folks errantly imagine, save money. They are costly, to the tune of billions of dollars. The federal bureaucracies must divert employees from doing their duties to preparing for the shutdown. Agencies that charge user fees, like the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, lose revenue. but the costs do not end there. Private businesses that work for the federal government get stiffed. Americans whose vacation plans included visiting national parks lose out, as do the tourism-based businesses located near Old Faithful and the like. 

That said, there is plenty of budgetary bad news. The continuing resolution only lasts until Dec. 16. The average American can be forgiven to assume its elected officials are diligently working to enact the dozen annual spending bills. No, they are campaigning for reelection, and will not be back to Capitol Hill until November, So, as the nation is turning its thoughts to ham, latkes and gift-giving, a government shutdown will loom once again.  

Plainly, this is no way for a country to budget. One fix to this situation would be for Congress to pass a law that creates an automatic continuing resolution. Should Congress fail to pass spending bills, appropriations would automatically extend thereby averting a government shutdown. Those of us who are hawkish on deficits would prefer to see an automatic continuing resolution include an automatic cut — say 5 percent across the board.  

But, the idea largely has been a non-starter on Capitol Hill. Neither the left nor the right can agree on whether this policy would include entitlements, like Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and Medicare. Mind you, entitlements comprise around 70 percent of all federal spending.  

And critics of automatic continuing resolutions rightly note that such a policy may erode what little incentive Congress has to try to pass a budget and spending bills. Budgeting is hard work, so why try when an automatic continuing resolution will avert a shutdown with no effort whatsoever?  

Leaving the nation’s budget on this sort of autopilot, it also is worth noting, is the antithesis of budgeting. At its core, budgeting is a process that requires participants to choose among competing objectives and to allocate resources accordingly. Passing one continuing resolution after another amounts to 535 senators and representatives saying, “We can’t prioritize or agree on how to respond to a changing world, so let’s just keep spending whatever we are spending.” It is difficult to see how that is going to work well for America. 

Everyone who has done any thinking about budget reform recognizes that the present congressional budget process is a dinosaur. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is nearly a half-century old, and the legislators of today simply refuse to abide by its demanding and flawed strictures. They will not pass a budget by April of each year; nor will they complete the appropriations bills before Sept. 30, or use the reconciliation process in a responsible manner to balance the books.  

But the trouble goes far deeper. Legislators not terribly long ago understood that their job was to make difficult choices among competing goods, to find ways to pay for them, and then explain their actions to voters. They were stewards entrusted to lead, and who recognized that an elected official does their constituents and the nation no favors by dodging the tough votes needed to make responsible budget policy. 

Paul Winfree, a budget wonk at the Heritage Foundation, observes, the annual budget was balanced more often than not between America’s founding and 1932. Even in the 1980s Congress hard bargained to strengthen the budget process in hopes of curbing deficits and the debt. As late as the 1990s they passed most spending bills on time. 

Not anymore. Legislators have lost their sense of responsibility and capitulated to short-term incentives, like scoring political points against the other party. They have given up on the idea that deficits and debt matter. With growing regularity, our elected officials denounce continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills that are too long to read but disclaim any responsibility in the process that created them. Then they peddle the buncombe that more tax cuts will balance the budget and that “modern monetary theory” shows the nation can borrow and spend without limits.  

Sadly, so long as voters indulge in this behavior, legislators will not change. The nation’s budget is a mess and we have $31 trillion in debt with interest rates on it rising. And I fear that things will not get better until a macroeconomic calamity goads voters and legislators alike to build a better budget act and live by its rules. 

Kevin R. Kosar (@kevinrkosar) is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the co-editor of “Congress Overwhelmed: Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform“ (University of Chicago Press, 2020). He hosts the Understanding Congress podcast.