You are here > Home > News Columns > Funding the Federal Government - Better planning is needed!

The Executive Branch Must Act Within Its Authority

Previous McCarthy needs backbone in order to cut federal spending	Lack of Planning Means Goals Aren’t Reached!	Next Supreme Court's Past and Present Docket
Published in The Post Newspaper September 30, 2023 [UPDATED] Should Joe Biden be impeached? Probably; along with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General.  Should doing so be a priority, pushing aside other legislative responsibilities.  We would say “Probably not!” We contend that the first priority of the Congress is to fulfill its constitutional job description.  That responsibility includes the funding of the federal government – the current funding expires at midnight on September 30th.   When the House left for its “August Recess” on July 27th it had only passed one of the twelve appropriation funding bills needed to keep the government running.  This week they are attempting to pass another four.  This will leave seven appropriation bills yet to be completed and it is highly unlikely the work on these will be done before the deadline, let alone leaving time to work out differences between the House and the Democrat-controlled Senate versions.  Instead, the Congress (both House and Senate) will most likely pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through the end of the year at the current FY 2023 levels – many of the conservative House members want to limit spending to at least no more than the FY 2022 levels and would prefer even lower spending levels. This, however, begs the question: “Why hasn’t the Congress been doing its job?”  Instead of taking six plus weeks off, they should have stayed in session through August; if doing so was necessary to get their appropriations work done.  Better yet, they should have passed all twelve funding bills in the House by the end of July, thereby leaving enough time to work out differences with the Senate versions.  This is the same problem we have seen in the House under both Democrat and Republican leadership and, in our humble opinion, it needs to stop! Meanwhile, the House leadership is focusing energy on an impeachment inquiry related to the “Biden Crime Family.”  As we said at the outset, gathering evidence and determining whether the President – and perhaps others in the Administration – need to be impeached and removed from office is important, especially given the information that has been reported in the press in recent days.  But if they can’t do both jobs concurrently the constitutionally mandated funding bills need to be the first priority.   UPDATE: Subsequent to the submission of this guest column the House of Representatives passed a “clean” short-term 45-day extension of funding for the entire federal government.  The vote was 335-91.  Shortly thereafter the Senate followed suit by a vote of 88-9. Among those voting against the “clean” bill [meaning that the current 2023 spending levels are continued without any reduction in spending] were conservative members of both chambers.  At a minimum, these members wanted a roll back of spending to FY2022 levels thereby reducing federal spending, and many wanted to go farther than that.  As a result of the bill’s passage, the House has the opportunity to pass the remainder of its 12 appropriation bills, but it only has 45 calendar days [less in legislative days] to get this done or be faced with the same situation they just experienced.
	About the Authors and Columnists 2023 Bill Sargent and Mark Mansius have written over 250 guest columns since 2014 and continue to do so. Bill lives in Galveston, Texas and Mark in St. Georges, Utah. Both ran against each other in the 2012 Republican Primary for Texas Congressional District 14, since then they have become close friends and colleagues.
.