Our Latest Continuing Resolution
At least they got the "continuing" part right
CR or Shutdown, Our Only Two Choices?
Congress is in the midst of their annual ongoing, never ending, Continuing Resolution budget exercises. The best-case scenario means we’ll have a CR for the entire 2025 fiscal year. That hasn’t happened since 2011, when Congress approved a whopping 7 CR’s. For context, the average is 2-3 per year.
The full year CR possibility is due to big fiscal changes identified through DOGE’s efforts. Republicans know that a new budget effort, instead of just standing pat with a CR, would be its own waste of time and efficiency. They need to see the targets stop moving, otherwise the effort will merge pin-the-tail-on-the-budget with drunken axe throwing.
Democrats on the other hand see a CR victory as handing Trump the time and flexibility to redirect funds. They scream constitutional over-reach. They do, though, have the power to scuttle the CR since 60 votes are needed in the Senate to pass. This means that seven Democrat Senators would need to get onboard. Considering it narrowly passed the House with 216 Republicans in favor and 212 Democrats against, with one from each party flipping to the other side, seven Democrat Senators would be significant bipartisan support.
It comes down to whether Democrats can stomach shutting down the government.
Reflections on 2013
Do you have any memories of the 2013 government shutdown that lasted 16 days, specifically disruptions impacting you?
I was in Washington working for the Department of Homeland Security as a contractor at the time. The shutdown only allowed us to work on projects already funded and we could not collaborate with any federal employees.
A shutdown is certainly impactful but the degree of the impact is in the eye, patience, safety, and health of the beholder. We should find out this week whether we are in for another shutdown or if a CR gives us a chance for the DOGE dust to settle.
You can draw some parallels between 2013 and this year’s budget angst and possible shutdown.
Trump and Constitutional Authority
In 2025, we have Trump, the new sheriff and executioner in town. Many on the left consider the recommended cuts by DOGE and implemented by the Executive Branch to extend beyond the constitutional authority of Trump. They may be right if Congress originally authorized programs that the Trump administration is now cutting. On the other hand, if the cuts affect programs initiated by bureaucrats, then Trump may have every right to slash.
Obama and Constitutional Authority
Now to the parallel from 2013. The shear scope of ACA, aka, Obamacare led to charges of Obama overstepping his constitutional authority. Republicans were the majority in the House and had a murder hornet in their bonnet over this health care overhaul. Not surprisingly, Congress couldn’t resolve those differences, and we proceeded with the 16 day shutdown.
A cartoon I drew at the time took issue with Obama playing politics with the issue. You might recall that during this shutdown, the federal government closed off access to open air structures not continuously manned by federal employees. This included things like the WWII memorial in DC, see the image below. Many people saw the action as a political stunt to amplify the shutdown’s impact.
The 2013 constitutional authority charge and the excessive shutdowns were ripe for the following cartoon.
Next week will set the stage for the rest of the fiscal year as we watch political games and manipulations play out.
Our founders didn’t establish the legislative process to be particularly efficient and nimble. It was to ensure we had enough time to rigorously evaluate impacts and assess urgency. The optimist would say “mission accomplished.”
But everyone recognizes that we’ve added one more item to things that are a certainty: death, taxes, and CR’s.
