5 SIGNS THE FEDERAL BUDGET PROCESS IS BROKEN

# 5 – During the last 13 budget cycles, the final appropriations bill was signed, on average, three months after the start of the fiscal year.  In fact, Congress has fully met its appropriations deadline only three times in the last 28 years.  

“These omnibus bills occur when, instead of passing each of the 12 appropriations bills separately, as we are set up and plan to do, they cannot pass them individually. Because they are so far behind, all the bills are cobbled together in an omnibus bill and moved at one time, which creates so much momentum that it is difficult to stop a bill such as that. It is certainly almost impossible to read and know what is in it. On average, these spending packages have combined 7.6 regular appropriations bills. So the average omnibus bill is 7.6 of the 12 appropriations bills piled all together in 1 bill and passed, basically rammed through the Senate and the House.” Sen. Sessions (R-AL)

# 4 – Congress has relied on 138 “continuing resolutions” in the last 28 years to keep the government operating when budget and appropriations bills have not been enacted on time.    

“If Congress does not appropriate money, it cannot be spent by the executive branch. It cannot be spent by the Government, period. So when we do not pass an appropriations bill to fund the Department of Defense or the Department of Housing and Urban Development, they cannot operate. They shut down. As a result, we come through with continuing resolutions to allow funding to continue at the previous year's level while we debate and argue over the appropriate appropriations for that next fiscal year.” Sen. Sessions (R-AL)  

# 3 – Congress squanders so much time each year spending money that there is little time to make sure the money is well spent.   

“We don't do a good job of oversight. One reason we don't do oversight in an effective way is because we have to pass the funding bills. We are always arguing over how much should be spent on this or that program, how much should be spent on this or that pet project, and we spend our time doing that and not going out and looking at agencies and departments with a fresh view.” Sen. Sessions (R-AL)   

# 2 – Mismanagment of the government's finances and abuse f the appropriations process have resulted in a historically low approval rating of Congress -- 74% of Americans disapprove of the way Congress does business.   

 "All of us in the Congress, and I think all of us in the Senate, know in our hearts, know in the deepest part of our being, that we are not doing a good job of oversight over this massive Government we are supposed to be managing…The current budget process, the current appropriations process, we know, is not working. It is an embarrassment to us. It embarrasses us every year, not just because the Democrats failed last year in their first year in the majority, but because Republicans failed too, consistently, to pass budgets in an effective way. It is a bipartisan problem. We need to look no further than the $400 billion deficit projected for this year, or our Nation's $9 trillion debt to know we are not being effective in managing the taxpayers' money.” Sen. Sessions (R-AL)

# 1 – Last year’s Omnibus bill combined 11 appropriations bills into 1, consisted of nearly 1,600 pages, and included 11,000 earmarks.

“The length of omnibus spending bills prevents careful study of the legislation’s details, so it is easier to overlook projects and programs that do not deserve funding. A little extra spending here and there is more likely to go unnoticed by lawmakers working with a 600-page document containing billions of dollars in spending.” Sens. Sessions (R-AL) and Isakson (R-GA)    

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BACKGROUND MATERIALS: If you're interested in learning more about the federal budget process and the need for biennial budgeting, check out these links below: