Frank has a thought experiment for you.
Show up to your job on Friday. Tell your boss you have not finished the thing you were specifically hired to do, the thing that has a hard deadline, the thing that if left undone will cause significant problems for everyone around you. Then tell your boss you are leaving for a week anyway because it is a holiday. Pack your bag. Drive to the lake. Have a beer.
Tell Frank how that goes.
Members of Congress did exactly this on July 4th. They left Washington for a weeklong recess with the federal budget still unresolved, the same argument still ongoing, and September 30th sitting on the calendar like a countdown clock that everyone in that building is pretending not to see. September 30th is the end of the federal fiscal year. If they do not pass all twelve spending bills or agree on a continuing resolution by then, the government shuts down again.
Frank would like to note that the last shutdown lasted 43 days. Frank would like to note that this is the longest government shutdown in modern history. Frank would like to note that it ended approximately eight months ago. Frank would like to note that Congress has apparently learned nothing from this experience and proceeded directly to the next argument about the same budget while scheduling a vacation in the middle of it.
Let Frank explain what a budget actually is.
A budget is not complicated. A budget is a list of what you have and a list of what you plan to spend it on. Frank does this at home. Frank does it in about twenty minutes with a cup of coffee and a legal pad. The federal government has an entire Office of Management and Budget, thousands of employees, decades of precedent, and a constitutional mandate to handle this process and it still cannot get twelve spending bills passed before the end of the fiscal year on a reliable basis.
The last time Congress passed all twelve appropriations bills on time was 1997. Frank was 32 years old. Frank had different hair. Different era entirely.
In every year since then the federal government has operated on continuing resolutions, last minute omnibus packages, or shutdowns. Continuing resolutions are essentially the government saying it cannot agree on a real budget so it is just going to keep spending money at last year's levels until it figures things out. Which it never does. So it passes another continuing resolution. And another. The national debt has gone from one trillion dollars to thirty-six trillion dollars during this period. Frank does not consider these facts to be unrelated.
The bipartisan part Frank needs you to understand.
Frank is not blaming one party for this. Frank has watched both parties run this exact play for thirty years. Republicans blame Democrats for blocking the bills. Democrats blame Republicans for the content of the bills. Both sides give speeches about fiscal responsibility. Both sides vote for continuing resolutions. Both sides go on recess.
The deficit keeps growing. The debt keeps climbing. The deadline keeps getting missed. The speeches keep getting made.
If you ran a business this way you would not have a business. If you managed a household this way you would not have a house. The federal government does it year after year and the people responsible for it are still employed, still paid, still receiving full benefits, and still leaving for the lake on July 4th while the work sits unfinished on their desks.
Frank does not consider this acceptable. Frank would appreciate it if more people felt the same way.
What the Constitution actually says about this.
Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution is very clear. No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law. The Founders designed the budget process to be Congress's most fundamental power and most fundamental responsibility. The power of the purse. The ability to control government spending is the most direct check on executive power that the legislative branch has.
Congress has turned that power into an annual crisis.
Frank is not sure what the Founders would say about a government that cannot pass a budget before going on vacation. Frank suspects they would say it clearly and with language that would not be suitable for a family publication.
Read the document. Then watch what Congress does with the responsibility it describes. Frank finds the distance between the two things instructive.
— Frank