The Continuing Resolution, and Us.

Have you ever had that feeling when you were in a business meeting, and some person (usually your boss,) was talking, and not one person in the whole room had a clue of what they were talking about? Have you then huddled with your colleagues to try and figure out what to do, and what he was talking about?

Well, I have, and it is uncomfortable, and confusing, and you don’t ever really want to be the person that raises their hand and says, “I have no idea what is going on,” although after you do, everyone is relieved, and they might thank you, but you also get fired, but, hey stuff happens. (Well, to be fair, I got fired. And to be REALLY fair, I did say, to said boss, “Could you please stop talking in tongues and tell us what you want?” It did get a laugh.)

This is where we are at right now in the country. Everyone is running around, lauding Senator John McCain for calling for a return to “Regular Order,” in the Senate, but let’s face it, no one has a clue of what he is talking about. So, in the spirit of being the person who raises their hand, and since you guys can’t fire me, here goes.

The House and Senate primarily exist to take in money, and then decide how to spend that money. The Founders were pretty specific about how this would work. The House, which they saw as the major representatives of the people, has the right, strictly protected, to decide how to raise money. Once they have that money, from taxes, from fees, they get to decide how to spend it. This is done in the Committees of the House of which there are now 20. These Committees, which have oversight of the Cabinet Departments, meet. The party in the majority, currently the Republicans, chair ALL of the committees. Democrats and Republicans, who are appointed to the committees by House leadership, sit on these committees, and divvy up the money. This is called appropriating. The committees’ members negotiate with each other; they add amendments, they cut deals. After all of that is done, the whole committee votes the bill out of the committee, and to the House Floor. These bills all get voted on by the full House, and if they pass, the bills are sent over to the Senate, to their committees, where they also work on the bills.

Here is the problem: The House is so dysfunctional, for various reasons, that this process has basically failed for 17 out of the last 20 years. So, to keep the Government functioning, the House passes a law, called a continuing resolution, that keeps the money flowing to the departments, usually based on past budgets. When this happens, the House and the Senate are operating under what is called, “Continuing Order.” This means that normal rules are suspended, and there is lots of ad hoc governing.

When John McCain gives a rousing speech, calling for the House and the Senate to return to “Regular Order,” he is calling for House to pass a budget, for the Senate to approve it, and for all of this to work in a normal way.

We are now operating in the House and Senate under continuing order — it was passed and signed by the President last week, and will continue until December. It is unlikely that there will be a budget by then, since the Republicans have failed to agree on how to appropriate — the budget has failed. So, there won’t be any return to Regular order for a while.

Next: Reconciliation and Cloture.