Ready for Another Government Shutdown Confrontation? No, You’re Not

Doesn’t Matter, It’s Coming Anyway

Looking back at the fiscal management, or mismanagement of the Federal government we have this exciting history

1. Because the Congress failed to pass a budget for FY2011, a series of deadlines to authorize Federal spending resulted in a last minute April 2011 agreement to fund the government through September 30, 2011, preventing a shutdown of Federal non-essential operations.

2. In August 2011 a last minute agreement to raise the debt ceiling prevented a complete shutdown of the Federal Government.

3. With funding running out on October 1, 2011, in September the Congress agreed to fund the government through mid November 2011. 

Well guess what.  Mid November 2011 is coming up and the country will now be treated to its fourth government funding crisis within the past 7 months.  That’s right, here we go again.

With the House on recess last week and the Senate away this week, there is now a broad expectation that the House and Senate might find it difficult to agree on spending to last through September 2012 before the deadline, which could mean adopting yet another short-term measure in November and forcing yet another painful debate about spending at its expiration.

And there is no guarantee that process will not break down along the way — as it did in April and again September — once again forcing high drama votes with the continued operation of the government hanging in the balance.

The Washington Post, in a rare burst of journalism has a nice summary of how the process should work.

The process begins with the president submitting a recommended budget to Congress in February for the fiscal year that will begin the following Oct. 1.

By April 15, both chambers of Congress are supposed to adopt their own budget resolutions, which are to broadly outline how much the government will collect and spend for the year.

This is when the appropriations committees used to get to work in each chamber, drawing up 12 separate bills that outline how much money will go to different agencies for various programs.

Each chamber is supposed to pass its own versions of the 12 bills, then negotiate the differences between them and pass identical measures, by the time the year ends Sept. 30. That way, federal agencies start the year knowing what to spend in the 12 months ahead.

That seems easy and simple enough.  But it has only been done twice. 

So what is going to happen now?  No one really knows. And to add to the difficulty of a resolution less than a week later the Super Committee on Deficit Reduction is supposed to have its recommendations approved.  And yes, there is no indication that an agreement within that group is possible.

And no one should get complacent if a deal is reached.  It will only authorize operations through Sept. 30, 2012.  Then a new deal has to be reached, right in the middle of the election.

Have fun.