It is Sept. 30, and that
means it is the last day of Fiscal Year 2015.
If Congress does not act
by midnight the government will be partially shut down. But not over any fight
to defund the health care law, executive amnesty for illegal immigrants, or
Planned Parenthood.
No, the question of
funding is being settled at the last possible moment with a
Senate continuing resolution through Dec. 11 simply because congressional leaders have
opted for the past many years to govern by crisis.
There is no
appropriations process to speak of, which most recently got shut down this past
summer when the issue of defunding Confederate flags came up.
But even considering the
wider record, since 2011, much of the government with a few exceptions has been
funded via continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills. Which tend to be
presented at the last possible moment, and with little to no opportunity to
amend.
Usually, these are deals
crafted between congressional leaders and the White House behind closed doors.
Obama has had no reason
to veto these spending bills. The
one time he did veto a spending bill was when Democrats were in the majority.
With Republicans in
control of the House since 2011, and the Senate since the beginning of 2015, no
spending bill has actually reached Obama’s desk to even be vetoed. They were
all pre-negotiated settlements.
Spending bills that
might have achieved something were never able to overcome the Senate
filibuster, so Obama did not have to veto them.
That said, so-called
discretionary spending levels have been frozen since 2011. These were locked
into place when Congress did manage to get budget sequestration in the 2011
debt ceiling battle. But little else has been accomplished from a Republican
perspective via the appropriations process.
In the meantime,
two-thirds of the $3.5 trillion budget continues to operate on autopilot — $2.3
trillion of so-called mandatory spending, entitlement programs that dole out
defined benefits on the basis of eligibility rather than annually approved
dollar amounts.
Republicans argue that
they just need a Republican president, and then they can achieve something —
ignoring the obvious fact that they will still likely be unable to achieve 60
vote thresholds to roll back key big government programs even if they hold the
House and Senate.
This has always been a
problem. Since the advent of Rule
XXII establishing cloture 98 years ago,
Republicans have never had a filibuster-proof
majority. And if history holds, they likely never will.
And until the filibuster
is eliminated, at least on appropriations bills, and entitlement programs
require periodic reauthorization, the Congress’ power of the purse will remain
tenuous at best, leading to the very sort of crisis management we see today.
One can only hope that
whoever takes over for House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) after he
retires recognizes these defects, and can begin to move to restore normal
order. The framers of the Constitution never envisioned a system where Congress
has so little power to set the nation’s fiscal policies.
Robert Romano is the
senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.
http://netrightdaily.com/2015/09/what-ever-happened-to-the-power-of-the-purse/
Comments
The one goal the federal
government will achieve is to increase the national debt to $20 trillion.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA
Tea Party Leader
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