Romina Boccia and David Ditch
The House is expected to vote Tuesday on a continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the federal government through December 11. Speaker Mike Johnson stated the priority is to “make sure this government gets funded and we don’t have another Democratic shutdown.”
Avoiding another pointless government shutdown is reasonable. But funding the government should not be Congress’s sole fiscal ambition, especially as it vies for Americans’ support in the upcoming midterm elections. Governing at a time when debt exceeds the size of the economy, while interest expenses consume more of the federal budget than national defense, requires more than maintaining an untenable status quo. Bond markets increasingly view federal debt as a riskier investment, demanding higher interest rates. (The Treasury Department’s recent attempt to intervene in the bond market and push rates down was misguided and ineffective.)
Preserving the Status Quo and Adding to Deficits
This CR would extend current spending levels without requiring lawmakers to decide which programs deserve continued funding, which should be eliminated, or how new priorities will be paid for. Rather than honoring promises to reduce inflationary pressures through responsible budgeting, the majority party is choosing an escape route from the difficult political choices Congress is supposed to make.
The CR also should not be viewed in isolation from the broader budget process. As I recently wrote, Congress has turned reconciliation, a procedure created to facilitate difficult deficit-reduction decisions, into a vehicle for more spending. The House and Senate budget resolutions now under consideration would authorize reconciliation packages that increase deficits, potentially by $95 billion and $150 billion, respectively. Most of the new spending would go towards defense and farm subsidies, budget functions that should be negotiated through the bipartisan appropriations process.
Congress is therefore pursuing two evasions at once. Through the CR, it is preserving the existing discretionary spending baseline. Through reconciliation, it is preparing to add new deficit-financed spending for defense and powerful agricultural interest groups. The combination allows lawmakers to keep the government open while avoiding bipartisan negotiations and confronting budgetary tradeoffs that would avoid adding to deficits.
How We Got Here
The Senate passed the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act of 2027 on August 8. In addition to extending fiscal year (FY) 2026 appropriations, the bill would extend the authorization of Highway Trust Fund programs through December 11. As with FY 2026 appropriations, the highway fund’s authorization is set to expire on September 30. Both extensions are necessary because of Congress’s inability to reach consensus, in no small part due to legislators seeking to avoid what they consider difficult choices heading into November’s elections.
Lawmakers are supposed to debate and pass twelve discretionary appropriations bills each year. To date, the House has only passed three FY 2027 appropriations bills, and the Senate Appropriations Committee has not even marked up a single bill. Regarding the highway bill, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee reported its portion on May 21, but none of the other relevant House or Senate authorizing committees have released or voted on their portions of the package.
The problem is not simply that Congress has failed to pass all twelve regular appropriations bills or address the highway bill on time. The deeper problem is that lawmakers have abandoned the purpose of the appropriations process: forcing them to establish priorities within a limited budget. Instead, Congress lurches from one short-term funding measure to the next, often under the threat of a shutdown, before passing legislation that largely preserves the status quo.
Even completing the appropriations process would not solve the nation’s fiscal crisis. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest costs operate largely on autopilot and will drive most future spending growth. Discretionary (appropriated) spending will represent less than one quarter of the FY 2027 budget.
But that is no excuse for Congress to surrender control over the spending it appropriates. Discretionary spending is still one of the few parts of the budget lawmakers review annually, and the expiration of appropriations on September 30 gives them an opportunity to impose discipline that they are choosing not to use.
Prioritize, Don’t Punt
Congress should pursue a short-term CR only if necessary to prevent a shutdown, and use the additional time to negotiate regular appropriations bills that prioritize essential functions and reduce lower-value spending. A CR should not be the goal. Any new spending should be offset by reductions elsewhere, not added to the deficit through an abuse of reconciliation. And lawmakers should establish a separate process, such as a BRAC-style fiscal commission, to address the mandatory programs driving debt to record highs.
The choice before Congress is not simply between a CR and a shutdown. It is between using the budget process to make difficult decisions and using procedural deadlines to avoid them.
A CR may keep the government going. But unless Congress couples it with genuine spending discipline, it will keep Washington’s fiscal failures going as well.
