The Potential & Pitfalls of Automatic Continuing Resolutions (ACR’s)
With the end of the recent government shutdown, there’s an emerging consensus on Capitol Hill about ending them. Several Senators have introduced legislation looking to end the practice, ranging from creating Automatic Continuing Resolutions (ACR’s) to using these resolutions to automatically cut spending by one percent if no agreement on a budget deal is reached. The bills tend to reflect ideologies of the Senators offering them from Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky). Recently, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) signaled his support for such measures. According to extensive research done Federal News Network reporter David Thornton, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended the idea of automatically continuing resolutions since 1981.
Senator Mark Warner’s bill holds the best potential to keep appropriations going while keeping in mind the dangers of eroding the power of the purse and other vital Constitutional strictures. His bill (titled the Stop STUPIDITY Act) does call for the linkage of appropriations to the inflation index, and specific language could be added to keep such resolutions provisions under the control of appropriators. The ACR’s should be subject to review yearly, updated to meet economic demands, and never be a substitute for actual budgets as negotiated by the Congress and White House. There are strengths and weaknesses to using Automatic Continuing Resolutions, and I will discuss them below.
Pros of Automatic Resolutions
The common theme in each of the bills creating ACR’s is to find a way to fund the budget in case of a major disagreement and potential disruption. The Founding Fathers and legislators since their time never considered that politics and polarization would weaken the budget-making process. An Automatic Continuing Resolution would give space to Congress and the Executive Branch for negotiation, and if it’s indexed to inflation the appropriations would remain stable. It also gives certainty to the Federal Bureaucracy that you can go ahead and plan, while providing services. It can be argued that if the legislation includes or gives the nod to Congressional Appropriators that their place in the budget-making process isn’t eclipsed, then their hands are strengthened in the end.
Cons of Automatic Resolutions
While there’s emerging consensus in Congress on wanting to use automatic continuing resolutions, there is opposition to this from academics and policy analysts who study the budget making process. In an article published on the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities website by authors Paul Van de Water and Richard Kogan, they cite that the implementation of automatic continuing resolutions would “cause serious problems of its own” and will “undermine sound budgeting” and diminish Congressional authority to set national priorities. Van de Water and Kogan also cite that these resolutions will reduce pressure (italics mine) on budget negotiators to come to an agreement on setting a budget, and will give the green-light to legislators determined to reduce government spending to use the tools of an ACR to cut spending. When examining the upcoming FY 2020 budget Van de Water and Kogan note that these types of resolutions would make it difficult to appropriate money for the upcoming census, and make it difficult to enact provisions of the recently passed VA Mission Act of 2018.
The concerns above highlight a fundamental problem with ACR’s. First it has the potential to take the control of the budget-making process away from appropriators-who have spent long political careers climbing up the ranks to become chairpersons. Second, the conservative goals of cutting the size and scope of government influence will find a useful tool in these automatic resolutions, since the potential to add automatic cuts to budgets will be too strong to resist. Third, government departments and agencies require certainty in their ability to create and keep to calendars, time schedules, and make adjustments to meet demanding needs for resources. With ACR’s, you have a set amount of money to fund operations, but it would damage the ability to prepare for unpredictable contingencies. All these are symptoms of a broken legislative system, with the root cause of this being America’s polarized politics. These concerns should be borne in mind if this policy of putting budgets on auto-pilot is signed into law.
How We Got Here
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. -U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 2 & Article I Section 7
For more than two centuries this is how our government functioned. All spending bills start in the House, and the Senate could propose a bill of its own or amend the bill coming from the House. Appropriators from the committees of both houses would be responsible for the spending bills and informing the leadership of both parties on where things are in the process. Once ready, the bills are voted out of committees and brought to the floor of each chamber for debate and amendment. A time to vote is scheduled, and votes are cast on the spending bills. Both houses would pass the bills and go to a conference committee. After a final vote in Congress, the budget bill heads to the White House for the President’s signature or veto. This process can take months, but in the end a budget is produced, and the process begins again in the next fiscal year. Because of partisanship and parliamentary maneuvers, our budget-making process is under deep strain. Political polarization has made the budget negotiation process an exercise in futility between Congress and the White House, and one branch of government or the other will now shut down the government in order to achieve policy goals that wouldn’t be possible under the regular order of putting budgets together. How Conservatives and Liberals view shutdowns will be critical to understanding where things are now.
Conservatives and Shutdowns
“Most Americans will not miss non-essential government functions. A referendum to end government plunder must happen. Wasteful government agencies are fighting for relevance but they will lose. Now is the time to deliver historic change by cutting them down forever.”
-Unnamed official in the Administration of President Donald Trump
This quote found in an article from the Daily Caller distills down to its very essence the Conservative reaction to government shutdowns. Since the first attempt by Republicans in Congress to intentionally shut down the government under the Speakership of Newt Gingrich (R-Ga) in 1995, shutdowns are more frequent and lasting longer. The first one was over the estimates of spending appropriations between the White House and Congress. But the real reason this happened centers around the results of the 1994 Midterms, where the Republican Party won a majority in both houses, and President Bill Clinton faced a hostile majority determined to bend him to their will. It was in this environment that the first long shutdown lasted 21 days from 16 December 1995 to 6 January 1996. Other than the shutdown initiated by the Democratic minority in both chambers over DACA in early 2018, the vast majority of government shutdowns occurred when Democratic White Houses faced Republican Congressional majorities. Out of the 21 shutdowns of government going back to 1976, 6 have been for partisan policy objectives. Of the six, they have been between a day to the recent one lasting for 35 days.
Liberals and Shutdowns
While Republicans are willing to use government shutdowns to achieve policy and political goals they otherwise couldn’t achieve through the legislative process, Liberals in the Democratic Party don’t favor such a course. Democrats usually end up being defenders of government being open. Time and again Democratic Presidents and legislators have warned the public on the effects of shutdowns. Here’s one article written by The Progressive Teen’s Jack Greenspan detailing the Democratic position.
The Necessity of Ending Government Shutdowns
“Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers.” -Federalist Papers (№2)
We are in a different place as a Nation where the Founders envisioned a strong central government, but limited in scope. The men who wrote the Federalist Papers and the Constitution never envisioned politicians using the levers of government in a negative way to cause shutdowns if they don’t get their way in the budget-making process. With different challenges comes different ways to handle these challenges. With the understanding that there are significant problems with using ACR’s, it’s time that this idea is explored. Government shutdowns are disruptive, and wholly unnecessary. But with Republicans determined to shrink government regardless of consequences to federal employees, contractors, and millions of taxpaying citizens who depend on government services, a tool respecting the powers of appropriators and protects Congress’s power of the purse must be devised. I propose that Sen. Warner’s version of Automatic Continuing Resolutions be limited in time and scope, allowing for the proper funding of agencies and contingencies they face. Limiting the time and scope of the Automatic CR will force the Congress and White House to negotiate, and certain mechanisms could be implemented to prevent using ACR’s to automatically cut government spending, and protect the operations and priorities of government agencies working on very important missions and programs.
Conclusion
The Executive and Legislative Branches are in a deadly dance, and America is the loser. Since our founding, we have had few shutdowns of government for purely political reasons. It was long understood that Congress and the White House are in the business of governing the country. But things have changed. In the last 20-plus years we have seen multiple shutdowns for partisan purposes, all to end with no gain for the perpetrator of the deed.
Our Constitution is a great tool for delegating who does what in our national government, and we must do all to protect it. We must honor the Congressional budget-making process, and not let shutdowns become a way of life.
