In case you missed it, the other day Congress passed a ‘Continuing Resolution.’ Not one of those things covered in our civics classes, a ‘Continuing Resolution’ is a means Congress has of keeping government moving when no budget has been passed for the new fiscal year.
A couple of comments are in order: what is a ‘Continuing Resolution?’ It is the term the Congress uses when they have failed to pass a budget for the fiscal year and so, in order to provide for funding to keep things operating, this ‘resolution’ (which means solution, which seems wrong) is passed that continues funding everything in the government at the same level as the previous year. In short, Congress passes a law that says ‘keep doing what you are doing, and money is authorized and appropriated until the date on the law, as the same rate as we were spending last year. There are other elements to it as well, certain items are funded at only a certain percentage of the previous year, no new programs can be started, etc. But, the long and short of it is that when Congress fails to pass a budget on time, they use this tool to buy some time until they do pass a budget.
So, how often has Congress used continuing resolutions? Well, since 1954 only 3 budgets did NOT require a continuing resolution: 1989, 1995, and 1997 (the last two courtesy of Newt Gingrich). The other 53 budgets (including this year) have each required at least one continuing resolution and many have required several.
Why?
Well, the answer isn’t terribly difficult to arrive at. In practical terms, Congress has one job, and one job only: draft a budget for the year and get it approved. Nearly everything that Congress does is, in the end, is contained in the stack of legislation that is produced each year to, in the language of Congress, authorize and appropriate money. And, every Congressman and Senator, and every staffer, and for that matter nearly everyone in Washington DC, knows that budgets, and control of spending authority, is the be all and end all of life in Washington.
Now, every time that someone bothers to raise a stink that the budgets aren’t being passed on time a large chorus of voices will rise that ‘you don’t understand,’ ‘this is very difficult,’ etc. Yet, every year they finally manage to push something through by December or January. And then it all begins all over again and the following autumn we are back once again to another continuing resolution.
Of course, further souring this whole process is the fact that some Congressmen and their staffers feel quite justified in defending poorly worded, overly complicated and obscure language in the bills that are passed because ‘they were rushed to get them passed before we had to pass another continuing resolution.’
This is sheer lunacy. Passing these bills is there job. So, why can’t they get it done on time, but they always get it done by December or January?
The answer is, unfortunately, all too simple. Congressmen (the term is used generically – Senators and Representatives) spend too much time doing other things and not enough time focused on the key issues. The waste of time that Congress engages in every time there is a hearing on some topic of the day is at the direct expense of their real role, the one we sent them to carry out. I love baseball, but what purpose did it solve to have hearings on steroid use in baseball, besides redirecting Congress’ attention from their central duties? It is important that Congress understand the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. But how many Congressional junkets are needed to do so? And why must committees other than perhaps the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees consume time and money on such trips?*
The fact is that the House and Senate lack leadership and they lack discipline. I suppose they could argue otherwise. But, if they are disciplined, why can’t they get their jobs done on time? I think we should all write our Senators and Congressmen and simply insist that either they pass all budgets on time, or they both grant us all a tax holiday – one-day holiday for every day of continuing resolution. And ad that no Congressmen or Senator or staffer gets paid under any more continuing resolutions. I suspect that would help to end the practice.
It is a curious fact that approximately 60% of the Senate (that is, 60 of 100 Senators) are lawyers, at least according to a Wall Street Journal blog of a couple of year ago. Wikianswers gives the number as ‘56 lawyers.’ The ABA claims that 36% of Congressmen are lawyers. What is disturbing about these numbers is that there are roughly 1,250,000 lawyers in the US, or .4% of the population. So, roughly 40% of Congress is lawyers. How representative is that?
-------------------------------------------
• While I agree with Judge Tucker’s warning that ‘no man’s liberties are safe while the legislature is in session,’ I simply want them to do their basic job.
No comments:
Post a Comment