Last month, we reported that the House had passed nine of twelve appropriations bills, while the Senate had thus far failed to pass a single bill. After an additional month of work and debate, the total number of appropriations bills passed stands at nine of twelve passed by the House, and zero by the Senate. Congress’s main achievement thus far has been avoiding a government shutdown by passing a continuing resolution to fund the government at current levels through December 3. While this may have seemed adequate originally, Vice-Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) has stated that a further continuing resolution will likely be necessary when the current one expires. This is, to put it mildly, not a hopeful sign for the appropriations process.

FMA National President Craig Carter issued the following statement after passage of the continuing resolution in October: “The Federal Managers Association commends the House and Senate on the passage of a continuing resolution (CR) earlier today. A CR is definitely preferable to a government shutdown and will keep America’s hard working federal employees doing their Congressionally-mandated jobs. Of course, a CR is never preferable to budgets passed in a timely manner. Continuing resolutions hinder the ability of the government and the military to plan for the fiscal year ahead. Key positions cannot be filled with new hires. Critical projects cannot begin because there is no guarantee they will be funded by the eventual budget, and a lack of resources to lay the groundwork even if they are funded. Contractors and small businesses suffer unnecessarily. The total cost to taxpayers and the government as a result of the uncertainty from any CR is reliably in the billions of dollars.”

“FMA thanks Congress for coming together to do the right thing and to keep the federal government from shutting down. We urge both houses of Congress to return to regular order in carrying out their constitutionally-mandated duty of passing all twelve appropriations bills in a timely manner going forward. Passing these spending bills is critical to enabling federal workers and agencies to carry out their crucial missions on behalf of the American people.”

The failure to pass appropriations bills in a timely manner should not be seen as typical. That it has become so is only because Congress has chosen to ignore their fundamental responsibility to keep the government funded by appropriating money for it through regular order.