Subject: Re: Continuing resolutions
Something else?

Heavy injections of common sense would probably be sufficient.

With the slim majorities we've worked with in this Congress, (50/50 in the Senate with the tie broken by the Vice President, and a literal handful of seats in the House) it's impossible to do anything without compromise. There are always a few in Congress that seem to think compromise is a bad word. They want their way or nothing. And since their way is unpalatable to the majority of Congress (on both sides of the aisle) we get the nothing option.

In this specific instance, there are a dozen or so GOP members of the House that refuse to vote for any CR on some made up grounds. That forces the rest of the GOP majority to compromise with Democrats to get a bill that can be passed. But that compromise can make a spending bill unpalatable to more Representatives. It's a doom loop. The Speaker has to perform a balancing act between getting a bill passed and keeping his or her job as Speaker.

One potential solution I can think of would be to require a new Congress to pass a 2 year budget before they can take up any other legislation. That would get budgeting out of the way with each Congress and keep the government operating. The budget could still be amended later as situations (or campaign promises) require.

--Peter