Congress Likely To Stopgap Budget For 29th Year In A Row

The budget battle is always a dramatic one on Capitol Hill. Republicans and Democrats fight overspending, not a whole lot gets accomplished, then we kick the can down the road with a short-term spending bill. All of it keeping the government funding for a few more months before the next bit of budget theatrics.

Once again, as they usually do, the Democrats are slowing the budget process. They are unhappy with President Trump's cuts of unnecessary spending in the Big, Beautiful Bill, and want many of their useless programs revamped. Republicans are not willing to budge on that and want even more spending cuts. So, as the budget deadline of September 30th looms, we are once again facing a government shutdown.

This is not the first time, as mentioned, this has happened. This has been the theme every year for the last 29 years. Nick Ballasy of Just the News says we are in the exact same boat once again.

"The irony of all this...when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was leading the House...he was thrown out by a group of Republicans because he said we would not do another continuing resolution, and then did another continuing resolution," he says.

The deficit is about the same, at about $1.9 trillion this year compared to $1.8 trillion last year. But that is the problem. Things are staying the same and not getting much better. The budget is a huge part of that problem.

We continue kicking the funding can down the road without looking at these programs which are bleeding us dry.

"They do not go through that process because they do these CR's as way, on a bipartisan level, to get these funding bills into law without actually making any changes," says Ballasy.

Changes are the mantra of the Trump administration. They see clearly that things cannot continue with tremendous debt and overspending we have and are trying to fix it. But you can only do so much when Democrats stand in the way, blocking any kind of true change.

So, once again, we will likely see an 11th hour emergency stopgap spending bill passed on September 29th. Which will take us to November, when this conversation will arise again. But the more we do this delaying of actual budgetary work, the worse it will continue to get.

"Because they are not getting down into the nitty gritty, going through these federal programs, and figuring out where there could maybe be some savings," Ballasy says.

The deadline for funding the government is September 30th. The House passed an emergency measure to fund the government through November 21st on Friday. Democrats int he Senate then shot it down.