When 2305's start looking at the budget, we will discuss what "the budget" is and what it isn't. It is a statement declaring what revenues and outlays are to be over a given period of time, but it is not a binding document. The budgets I asked 2305s to discuss in this week's assignment are better considered as being political - not fiscal - instruments. The Constitution says nothing about budgets or a budgetary process, only that funds cannot be drawn from the treasury if an appropriations bill has been passed to authorize it. But the recent dysfunction in Congress has even made that problematic, and more recently the US government has been funded by a series of short term funding measures called continuing resolutions.
Here's Wikipedia's definition of a continuing resolution: A continuing resolution is a type of appropriations legislation used by the United States Congress to fund government agencies if a formal appropriations bill has not been signed into law by the end of the Congressional fiscal year. The legislation takes the form of a joint resolution, and provides funding for existing federal programs at current, reduced, or expanded levels.
If the resolution is not passed - assuming that the appropriations bills have not passed either - they money cannot be drawn from the treasury to fund government agencies and they have to shut down. At least those that perform non-vital programs do.
We will cover this more fully later, but I bring it up now because the US House and Senate have passed continuing resolutions in order to avoid a shutdown - which tends to be unpopular.
Here are the stories that provide detail:
- Congress moves one step closer to avoiding a government shutdown.
- House to approve bill to keep government running.
- House approves resolution to keep government running; bill heads to White House.
This guarantees funding until September 30th, when further funding can be subject to hostage taking again.
