Congress is confronted with a deadline of October 1 to adopt a spending measure to keep the federal government open. Various reporters will interview serious people who say serious things in the basement corridors of the American Capitol. There will also be a political attitude, wrong representation of things and braggadocio or evasion. Political editor Naomi Schalit has interviewed Congesexpert Charlie HuntA political scientist at BOise State University, about the now temporary drama about expenses In the congress and what is very different about this year’s conflict.
How did the congress endure budgets in the past so that the government could continue to operate?
Usually you would be one Actual passage of a full budget for a year. But in the last 20 or 30 years, because we have become A more polarized country with a polarized congressWe have a lot of what continuous resolutions are mentioned, or CRS. They are stopgap measures – not the full budget – and do not tend to make many changes to many of the expenditure priorities that the congress has.
Continuous resolutions usually just Extend the current expenditure levels for a short time So that the two parties can continue to negotiate. But because negotiations on long -term budgets more and more fail, these CRs are increasingly becoming ahead, and Congress almost never passes a full budget At the moment annually.
What is the role of the president here?
The president has the Veto Every piece of legislation, and that includes the federal budget. In essence, what majorities in the congress need when they enter into a budget fight, the implicit registration of the president is what they pass, or they need enough voices to ignore the president’s veto.
The congress and the presidency are currently both held by Republicans, they are a pretty deep coordination, so that is not that much care this time. It is really exactly what Trump wants to be part of this legislation, and if there is something in it that he really does not like, then the congress must go back to the drawing table and the Republicans must find a way to get that in the bill.
What drives every party in these negotiations?
There are two different things at work here. One is that the congress, as I said, is really polarized. The two parties are further apart than they used to be. So the average Democrat and the average Republican will not match that policy priorities and financing priorities than they are in the 1980s or 1970 or before.
The other is that the congress in recent decades Has been more divided Then in the recent past, say, the last century. In both rooms, house and senate it is very rare that one party or the other has a huge majority. You need a majority of 60 In the Senate, for example, have the opportunity to adopt the most legislation, and this large majority has not happened since 2009. That is something that President Obama only enjoyed a short period of the Democrats.
Since then there have been very closely distributed rooms in the congress, and that means that, at least in the Senate, you need what dichotomy to pass on that threshold of 60 votes to break a filibuster. That is what really throws the works. Democrats Not feeling that they are being included in negotiationsAnd so they will not probably agree to a budget for republicans only in the Senate.
What is different about the budget fight 2025 than previous?
Much of the dynamics is still the same. You still have partisan battles. And you still have a few dividing lines within the two parties that I think is worth mentioning. An example: there was one Senate votes the other day A few Republicans voted with the Democrats on one of these budget resolutions. So for some of these more shortage republicans, that concern still plays a role.
What is new this time is this element of relaxation. This is a tool that has been available since the 1970s, in which presidents ask the congress to revoke the expenses they had assigned. This is what happened earlier this year With the rescues of public broadcasts – NPR and PBS – that have received a lot of attention, as well as on USAID. Trump said he wanted to lower the financing for public broadcasts – the Gop in the Senate and the house voted to leave him. They also did not need 60 votes in the Senate for a dissolution. Just a majority for this movement.
So in this case, Democrats look at this and think: “Why should we negotiate, if you will withdraw it later without our permission?” That is a large element that has changed. Although it is a force that has been present for a while, Trump and the Republicans are really willing to handle that.
Do you see that this termination is exercised with every budget or continuous resolution that passes the congress?
This is a fairly serious infringement of what we call Congress ”Power of the wallet.”That punishment is explained in Article 1 of the Constitution. It is an important power, perhaps their most important power and leverage they have to go back and forth with the president and to ensure that the executive does not take too much power.
But if this disruption authority will be used in this way in the future, where in fact any expenditure priority that the president does not want or does not want to finance, is subject to dissolution, then the congress does not really have the power of the wallet, right? They have a president who will express everything on a veto that does not meet their expectations, or they can simply sign it and later ask for these teaching.
The most important thing is that President Trump currently has a series of republicans in both the house and the senate who are willing to do almost everything he wants and is subject Much of the political pressure in their districts That put him in the first place. So if they do not resume, they will face the wrath of their Republican voters in their district.
That is one thing that has really changed in the last 30 years that I think the president gives the president much more authority in these matters, and makes withdrawal such a powerful tool that never existed before.
Charlie HuntAssistantial teacher Political Sciences, Boise State University
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