The stunning rebuke of Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker is yet another indication of the dysfunction of Congress. In this case, the House Republican majority was overruled by eight far-right renegades who claim they are trying to control spending. Of course, Republican concerns about the debt only occur when a Democrat is in the White House, while Democrats, with rare exceptions, never worry about the debt.
House Republicans need to sort themselves out and attempt to regain a modicum of credibility so they can govern. But the dysfunction is not confined to House Republicans. The entire Congress — House and Senate — is to blame for the ongoing failures in the budgeting process.
Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution requires Congress to “lay and collect taxes,” while Section 9, specifies that “no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.”
In other words, it is Congress’ sworn duty to raise money and develop a budget. This fiscal year, the federal government will spend $6.4 trillion (and collect only $4.8 trillion). That is a massive amount of the people’s money, and our elected representatives have a responsibility to budget it, yet Congress botches it, not occasionally, but every year!
The 1974 Congressional Budget Act Congress lays out an orderly appropriations process. It sets a nearly year-long agenda for developing the next year’s spending plan. House and Senate Appropriations Committees are each supposed to pass 12 funding bills and then the full Congress must pass them.
But according to Drew DeSilver at the Pew Research Center, “That hasn’t actually happened since 1996. Since then, Congress has never passed more than five of its 12 regular appropriations bills on time.” Instead, Congress falls back on a patchwork of fixes, including continuing or full-year resolutions or omnibus bills that bundle several appropriations together.
When Congress cannot agree on the temporary fix by Oct. 1, the government shuts down, as it almost did last Saturday. Congress averted a shutdown by passing a continuing resolution, but nothing has really changed. Congress will face the same issues when it confronts the next deadline.
Congress desperately needs to return to the regular order of business on budgeting. That means a much earlier start on spending bills with time for amendments, full debate in each chamber, then, ultimately, agreement between House and Senate on the budget.
But what are the odds?
Our tribal politics pit the two parties against each other leaving no room for compromise, and now House Republicans can’t even agree among themselves. Too many members are more interested in raising their profiles and the political contributions that go with it than doing serious work.
McCarthy’s demise is attributable to his ill-advised deal allowing just one member to propose a resolution to remove him. However, the backdrop to this farcical drama is the consistent failure of Congress to properly execute its budgeting responsibilities. And that is a much bigger issue than who is Speaker of the House.
