Upcoming CR Shows Broken Budget and Debt Addiction

Lawmakers are considering a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government from shutting down when funding lapses on Friday, September 30th at the end of the fiscal year. The proposed CR would keep the government operating through December 16th, at which point lawmakers would either need to extend funding with another CR or pass appropriations bills.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

It is a complete failure of leadership that we are entering the final days of the fiscal year and Congress has not even passed a budget, let alone set funding levels for the government for the next fiscal year. This will make it the 26th consecutive year in which Congress has not funded the government on time with all appropriations bills and the fifth year in a row in which not a single funding bill has been signed into law by the start of the fiscal year.

This goes to show how truly broken the federal budget process is. It’s long past time for Congress to make meaningful reforms to the budget process that encourage real, timely budgeting instead of waiting until the last minute only to kick the can down the road once more.

With Congress set to punt these decisions to December, policymakers should not use a continuing resolution as an excuse to add to their already excessive borrowing.  Already this year, the debt has grown by more than $1.1 trillion. New legislation and executive orders totaling $1.9 trillion in new debt over the next decade have been passed this year alone and the Biden Administration has approved nearly $4.9 trillion in new deficits since taking office – and that’s after the deficit reduction from the Inflation Reduction Act.

It’s time to put the shovel down and at the very least stop digging us further into debt in 2022. Lawmakers should pledge that any year-end package that funds the government will not add further to the debt.

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For more information, please contact Kim McIntyre, Director of Media Relations, at mcintyre@crfb.org