Attempts to corral spending often hit the wrong targets entirely. Recently, Senators Lee (R-Utah) and Paul (R-Kentucky) objected to some provisions of legislation designed to provide continuing funding designed to cover the medical costs of First Responders who developed terrible illnesses from exposure to dangerous substances in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. This is an absurd attack on a comparatively minor budget item designed to provide appropriate support for heroes who abundantly deserve it.
As every family knows, all spending is not equal. Repairing a busted roof, for example, has priority over taking a luxury vacation. They also understand that timely budgeting and planning are the most efficient ways to use income. It’s a vital practice. The federal government has yet to understand that logic.
Both Democrats and Republicans, trying not to offend any potential constituency and apparently incapable of coming to an agreement on what the national priorities should be, have engaged in ludicrous procedures that treat vital necessities, such as national defense, on the same par as the latest pork barrel project.
The most well-known manifestation of that nonsense is Budget Sequestration, a law and a concept that purportedly seeks to limit the federal budget, but in substance shields Congress from its responsibility to make hard decisions and spend wisely. It sets a hard cap on spending. The idea is that if Congress enacts annual appropriations that exceed the limit, an across-the-board spending cut is automatically imposed on general categories, affecting all departments and programs equally. The current incarnation of this ridiculous idea came into effect (it has antecedents going back to 1985) is the Budget Control Act of 2011 which came about during the Obama Administration, a period which doubled the national debt with nothing to show for all that spending. Indeed, despite slashing defense spending, and doing little to stabilize key programs such as Social Security and infrastructure repair, and despite excessively high taxes on individuals and businesses, it didn’t stop the doubling of the national debt, from about $10 trillion to approximately $20 trillion.
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The irrationality and political cowardice of Congress’s approach to the budget hurts the nation across the board. The inability to timely come to a broad budget agreement in compliance with sequestration results in “continuing resolutions” which, due to uncertainty and a lack of program continuity, results in higher expenses. The General Accounting Office (GAO) describes the problem: “In all but 4 of the last 40 years, Congress has passed continuing resolutions (CR) to keep agencies running between budgets. Without appropriations or a CR, the government may partially shut down. We testified that CRs, possible shutdowns, or both create uncertainty and inefficiency for agencies. For example, our past work found that agencies have reported delays and rework in contracts, grants, and hiring.”
A Heritage study of this process provides one example: “Continuing resolutions impose a considerable cost on the military’s readiness levels through loss of training time, delayed maintenance, and delayed availability of new ships.”
The point is hammered home by an American Enterprise study:
“Continuing resolutions negatively impact the military in three main ways. First, because CRs freeze individual appropriations accounts at last year’s levels, tens of billions of dollars will be misaligned. For instance, though the difference between the 2020 requested level of $750 billion and the 2019 spending level of $716 billion is only $34 billion, the actual effect of the CR is greater because the additional funding is misaligned compared to the budget request—and often at a lower level. This misalignment negatively affects all accounts, but particularly creates problems for troop training and maintenance of equipment and facilities—the core of military readiness. Near-term readiness is perishable and must be constantly maintained for the “fight tonight” or it is lost. It takes longer to rebuild readiness than to maintain it. Second, continuing resolutions do not allow the military to start new weapons programs or increase the production of existing weapons. This year, that means hundreds of new programs necessary for regaining the military’s edge against Russia and China will not be able to move forward until the CR is lifted. Third, by injecting uncertainty into every process, these spending freezes create significant sums of financial and personnel waste through duplication of work, higher prices, and contracting delays.”
Illustration: Pixabay