Over the last few days there’s been work in Congress on legislation which would eliminate the requirement that Continuing Resolutions be passed by Congress, thus eliminating the entire shutdown crisis scenario. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive outfit, decided to think about it a little bit:
By allowing the government to keep operating without any action by Congress and the President, an automatic CR mechanism would significantly reduce pressure to reach agreement on full-year appropriation bills and thus would tend to prolong budgetary uncertainty. Most important, it likely would significantly increase the instances in which the previous year’s appropriation levels and priorities remain in place for a year or more while pressing, new needs go unattended and areas that no longer need as much funding are overfunded. In addition, by freezing funding at last year’s levels (as an automatic CR would likely do), it would strengthen the hand of those who want to shrink the size of government.
An automatic CR could be particularly problematic in fiscal year 2020. As explained below, it could make it more difficult to secure a sound budget agreement that sets the appropriations caps at levels sufficient to maintain progress made under the last budget agreement in a range of areas and address pressing needs, including the decennial census and the recently enacted veterans’ health legislation known as the Mission Act.
If you’re a conservative, you probably don’t care. If you’re a small-government fanatic, you may be nodding your head and smiling.
But, while I’m no games theorist, I’d like to point out that an auto-CR facility will significantly increase the complexity of the political game in Washington, D.C., and that game is already fairly complex. The danger of unintended consequences will go up, and if my conservative reader is happy today at the thought of using this auto-CR facility to simply suffocate those programs he considers superfluous, overweening, or otherwise undesirable, rest assured that progressives will have their best minds working on how to use such a facility to their advantage.
I’d not be smiling if I were on either side, and as an independent I’m not sure I like it, either.
Look, while I appreciate the deviousness of a surprise pin of a queen in chess, or a particularly deceitful toe touch in fencing, as much as the next competitor, in general I prefer a more straight-ahead approach to life. When it comes to the government, I don’t want to see oily politicians like Mulvaney hiding being some sort of auto-CR legislation in order to, say, not fund his hated Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) at what others may consider to be an appropriate level. It’s. Just. Dumb.
But even more importantly, consider this. These shutdown crises are high stress situations for everyone involved, from the Federal employees and contractors who are not getting paid and trying not to be evicted or served with repossession papers, to the elected leaders who may or may not have gotten us into this mess[1], but sure are responsible for getting us out.
And pressure situations serve to strip away artifice and obscuring tactics. They can reveal to us, the electorate, the real nature of those folks we’ve elected. And that’s important. For those of us who really want to see and understand our representatives, both Executive and Legislative, this is a good opportunity to get a peek under the business suits. During our most recent shutdown, we saw President Trump’s gross incompetency at the governance game; we saw the Congressional Republicans shuffling around impotently, unable to convince themselves to even pass legislation that they had passed in the prior Congress, just because President Trump had been literally manipulated into rejecting it, forcing a shutdown.
Not that any of this was a big surprise to regular watchers, but it’s another opportunity to confirm evaluations.
But seeing Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Schumer (D-NY) go to town on Trump and the Congressional Republicans served to give us a great view of what the Democrats can do, given an opportunity. They have a firm grip on the rules, written and unwritten, that runs American government, they held their side together, and they refused to be buffaloed by the great bully himself.
This example is why I think the auto-CR legislation, as well-meaning as it is, is short-sighted. Yes, it’s very tough on Federal employees and contractors during a shutdown, and that’s not good. But this Republic really needs budgets agreed to, appropriations negotiated, passed, and signed off, all on a regular basis. When these shutdowns occur, they can reveal to us the true nature of those who force these things upon us in a way that other events cannot. We learned that the 116th Congressional Republicans are even more subservient than the 115th Congressional Republicans, but the 116th Democrats can operate as an effective team and enforce their will, all quite lawfully and, in my view, rightfully, on the Executive. We learned Pelosi is not some shrill housewife, but a coldly effective leader with whom it’s frankly dangerous to cross blades.
And, using that information, voters can perhaps improve on their selections when the 117th Congress comes around. We saw who was effective, and who was not. The Republicans have yet another red flag waving in their faces.
1 The most recent shutdown started during the 115th Congress, which was entirely controlled by the GOP. That Congress terminated and was replaced by the 116th this January, and is, for those hiding underneath a rock, split between the GOP controlling the Senate and the Democrats controlling the House. Therefore, the shutdown started because the 115th Congressional GOP could not nerve itself to override Trump, thus leaving the entire mess for the Democrats to clean up. I suspect this’ll turn out to have been a tactical error in retrospect, as the Democrats have every appearance of being effective, while the GOP sat around on its hands and waited for Trump to do something, and he was incapable.
