SEPTEMBER 7, 2018 / The most important story . . .

. . . I've read in a long old time.

It is spoiled only by . . .   

. . . burying the lede and making it a story about Donald J. Trump. Forget him. It's what Congress is doing that matters. And what Congress is doing is magnificent, procedurally, though still woeful on budget discipline. But credit where credit is due: federal budgeting is Congress' job, and Congress is finally doing it. 

President Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and House Speaker Paul Ryan have teamed up this summer to do something that hasn’t happened in two decades — write and pass department spending bills instead of lumping everything into a massive package.

he House and Senate are moving at a brisk pace to pass the appropriations bills, with the Senate leading, approving nine of 12.

What’s more, the Trump administration has pushed through key priorities on wall and Pentagon spending, as well as curbing wasteful programs, though still ending up with a more expensive budget than they wanted by over $50 billion.

And while Congress has taken the votes, many on Capitol Hill are giving Trump and his team the credit for breaking the 20-year log jam. They cite his refusal to sign another massive “omnibus” spending bill that ignored his priorities, even if it means shutting down the government.

"This is all driven by the president," said a key congressional insider. "It's a win for the president. For 20 years this system has been busted."

Nobody is as pleased as McConnell. Last week he said that the passage of department spending packages was a huge achievement, "given how completely fouled up the government process has been for 20 years, 20 years."

Smiling, he added, "This is about omnibus prevention, about actually demonstrating to the American people that we can do what we're supposed to do."

He also urged Americans to pay attention to the breakthrough on an issue that is critical to Washington budget geeks, but few others. 

And to Unca Darrell, of course. This "breakthrough" is the real lede.

It's an important step forward and ought to reassure the American people that Congress is in good hands," said McConnell . . . .

. . . .

Shifting from a huge spending bill, usually passed at the last minute, to separate department packages, is change Trump hopes to repeat. "I don't think we can understate how big of a culture change this is," said a senior administration official.

Trump's former top congressional lobbyist, Marc Short, said the change was bolstered by new authority to lawmakers closer to the issues than party leaders.

"It's a big deal," he said. "It's the way it should be," he added.

With a month left in the federal fiscal year, the administration and Congress plan to keep their foot on the appropriations pedal. If they come up short, administration officials expect Trump to sign a short-term "continuing resolution" if it appears final passage of the spending bills is near.

And already they are looking to begin the process next year and hope to add in more Trump priorities and budget cuts.

"We to recognize that we made progress and we're excited about that, but there's more work to do," said a senior administration official. "After the election," said the official, "we need to get our priorities. If you're going to spend higher than our budget it needs to be things we want to spend money on, namely the wall and border security."

Paul Bedard, "Trump breaks 20-year 'fouled up' budget gridlock, scores big wins," Washington Examiner, September 4, 2018.

So what's wrong with the way Congress has been budgeting for twenty years? What's wrong is that Congress has studiously avoided doing what the law---not to mention the Constitution ---says Congress is supposed to do.

Here's a good introduction from Wikipedia:

The United States budget process is the framework used by Congress and the President . . . to formulate and create the United States federal budget. The process was established by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, and addition budget legislation.

Prior to 1974, Congress had no formal process for establishing a federal budget. When President Richard Nixon began to refuse to spend funds that Congress had allocated, they adopted a more formal means by which to challenge him. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 created the Congressional Budget Office (CB)), which gained more control of the budget, limiting the power of the Presidents Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The Act passed easily while the administration was embroiled in the Watergate scandal and was unwilling to provoke Congress.

The big idea is that by early February each year, the president is supposed to propose a budget for the next fiscal year, beginning October 1 and ending September 30. Beginning in March and working through their respective budget committees, the House and Senate are expected to agree on the total budget number and the share of the budget allocated to each of defense, agriculture, and other broad categories of spending.

Individual congressional committees then step in and work out the details. From this moment, budgeting is a zero-sum game. The questions for defense, for instance, are to balance the available funds among all the competing claims -- for salaries, fighter planes, and Navy destroyers, for instance. It makes perfect sense to have these decisions make by House members and senators who specialize in defense issues.

The problem in recent years is that this process has been ignored. Months pass with no progress on writing a budget. At the last moment, the president and congressional leaders agree to a continuing resolution to keep funding the government at the old levels, plus some agreed percentage increase. These are the famous Omnibus Resolutions that make mockery of systematic budget-making. The final appropriations bill is typically crafted by the administration and the leadership of the House and Senate. Doing things this way is a shameful abdication of congressional responsibility. 

So why do we do things this way? There are bad guys on both sides, because congressional leaders of both soon become addicted to making all the decisions in closed-door rooms. And presidents enjoy the added authority of having a stronger hand in the budget process than the Constitution contemplates. 

The principal culprits, however, are Democrats, especially in years when they control one or both houses of Congress under a Republican president. Recurring annual budget crises are a handy way to keep the budget growing under the threat, toothless as it turns out, of a presidential veto. Without budget authority, our government would theoretically shut down. A president cannot unilaterally write and impose a budget (thank God), and if Congress refuses to write a new budget, there's no serious alternative to sending the current budget, generously topped up, back into the game, year after year after year. 

There's way more to say about all this than I've said or know enough to say, but the big idea is simple: either Congress writes the budget, committee by committee, or the Washington leadership writes the budget overnight before the scheduled government shutdown and summons House members and Senators to vote on something they have had no hand in designing, take it or leave it.

If Mr. Trump has had a hand in restoring the regular order of budget-writing, then good for him. My guess I is that Mr. McConnell and Mr. Ryan are the true heroes

Your want Congress to work? This is what a working Congress looks like.

The mid-term elections will determine whether we continue the gamble on representative government or revert to budgets designed in midnight drafting sessions by Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Shumer. 

 

 

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