Budget dysfunction’s cost: ‘High and rising’
Congress’ string of stopgaps knots up even the basics
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon can’t order new weapons systems or ramp up ammunition production. Medical researchers have their budgets sliced and often scramble to reconfigure clinical trials. Highway projects are delayed, and maintenance is deferred.
That’s what happens every time Congress passes stopgap spending bills instead of a regular, full-year budget.
Such disruptions aren’t going to end just because Congress passed a sweeping bipartisan budget deal this month.
The government is still running on yet another short-term spending bill — one that bars most agencies from embarking on new projects and that flatlines spending for existing programs, even those Congress determines are outdated or unneeded. The latest spending patch will expire at midnight March 23, setting up another funding cliff in about five weeks.
“It is both frightening and embarrassing that the world’s most experi-
enced democracy is currently unable to carry out even the most basic responsibility of funding the services that Americans are expecting from their government,” Alice Rivlin, a budget expert, told senators at a hearing recently on Congress’ broken budget process.
The cost of Congress’ spending dysfunction? “High and rising,” Rivlin said.
“We lurch from crisis to crisis, wasting countless hours across the federal government as employees prepare for shutdowns or draft detailed, comprehensive yearly budget documents that are completely disregarded,” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said at the Senate hearing, titled the “Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Ways of Funding Government.” Two examples:
❚ The Pentagon requested additional money this year for munitions. The White House agreed, and so did lawmakers in Congress. But stopgap spending bills, called “continuing resolutions,” force the Department of Defense — and other federal agencies — to run on autopilot, unable to make adjustments or start projects.
“Every account is stuck at last year’s funding, and you’re specifically barred from starting new programs and from increasing the procurement rate,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “So if you bought 10 of a certain aircraft last year and you were planning to buy 20 this year, you can’t do that. You’re stuck.”
❚ At the National Institutes of Health, when Congress starts a fiscal year with a continuing resolution instead of a fullyear budget, the agency automatically shaves 10% off federal grants it awarded to scientists across the country.
“The NIH will hold back money so they’ll have enough at the end of the year to try to fund new research,” said Benjamin Corb, a spokesman for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Nearly every October, scientists “have 10% less money for either a student in their lab or for (materials) to do experiments.”
More broadly, the constant cycle of self-inflicted showdowns created by the weeks-long spending bills means Congress has little time to set broad spending priorities and shift funding levels to address emerging threats.
“We’re not paying attention to what we fund or how much. We’re not paying attention to whether it works or doesn’t work,” said Sen. Rand Paul, RKy., who convened the Senate hearing.
Congress is required every year to pass a dozen separate spending bills to fund government agencies in time for the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. The last time the House and Senate passed all of the separate appropriation bills on time was more than two decades ago — in 1997.
“We lurch from crisis to crisis, wasting countless hours across the federal government.” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich.
To solve this problem of their own making, congressional leaders have called for a bipartisan “supercommittee” appointed to examine the problem and recommend reforms.
Some budget-fixing proposals are already in the legislative hopper. One bill would force lawmakers to go without pay if they didn’t pass a budget and all the appropriations bills on time. Another would prevent Congress from leaving Washington for scheduled breaks unless lawmakers have adopted a budget blueprint.
Paul said the real problem is a lack of political will.
“Something has to change,” he said. “People have to have the will to do the right thing.”