Congress Fails to Adopt a Budget On Time (Again)
How do you feel about Congress missing its deadline to adopt a budget?
For the third straight year, Congress missed its April 15th deadline to adopt a concurrent budget resolution that outlines the federal government’s spending levels for the upcoming fiscal year.
Since the enactment of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the House & Senate have been required to enact a budget resolution in the spring so that appropriations bills (which actually provide the money to be spent) can be drafted & enacted before the new fiscal year begins on October 1.
However, adopting a budget resolution before the deadline has proven to be more aspirational than attainable for lawmakers. Congress has only met its budget deadline five times since 1975, and there have been 10 fiscal years in that timeframe where a budget wasn’t adopted by Congress.
Rather than bringing forward a budget resolution prior to the April 15th deadline, House Democrats planned a vote on a bill that’d raise spending caps for defense and non-defense discretionary spending to $1.295 trillion in FY2020 and $1.326 in FY2021.
The rationale was that a caps bill would prove less controversial than a detailed budget resolution, but progressives within the caucus pushed for more spending while members of the moderate Blue Dog coalition opposed the increases. That put the caps bill at risk of failing to get the Democratic votes it’d need to pass, so leadership put it on hold and turned to what’s known as a “deeming resolution”.
A deeming resolution always consists of at least two components ― a reference to budget levels and language stating that those levels are enforceable as a point-of-order as if they were included in an actual budget order.
In this case, the House adopted a deeming resolution that set a top-line budget level of $1.295 trillion without differentiating between defense and non-defense spending levels. The deeming resolution was adopted as part of a rule that established debate and amendment parameters for a net neutrality bill.
On the other side of the Capitol, the Republican-controlled Senate Budget Committee advanced a traditional budget resolution along party-lines. But given that it’s unlikely to be considered by House Democrats even if it were to pass the Senate, it's unclear if it will even receive a vote before the full Senate.
— Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: iStock.com / drnadig)
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