In the consistent tussle between party lines, government shutdowns have come to symbolize the epitome of legislative dysfunction, making victims out of governmental agencies and the people who rely on them—however, a proposed remedy is on the horizon, as reported by Senator Grassley's office. The Senator has renewed his approach to preventing these standstills with a bill aimed at keeping the government wheels turning without the all-too-familiar eleventh-hour drama.
Grounded in the necessity of fiscal responsibility, the legislation seeks to inject a dose of reality into the appropriations process, which has become a recurrent tension point within Congress, every time the fiscal year draws to a close on September 30—and here we are, amid another standoff, awaiting the clock to strike midnight with wary anticipation but, Senator Grassley is convinced he's got the fix as his bill proposes a legislative lockdown, pinning lawmakers to their desks in Washington until spending bills are passed, banning taxpayer-funded junkets for Congress members, their staff, and White House Office of Management and Budget staff until the deed is done.
The nuts and bolts of this potential solution lie in an automatic continuing resolution (CR) that, as Senator Grassley suggests, would maintain spending at the previous fiscal year's levels on a 14-day rolling basis—it's a sort of legislative life support meant to keep the government's vital signs steady, even as the higher-ups bicker, the goal is to remove leverage from the equation, to stop critical services from becoming casualties in a war of attrition over federal dollars and cents.
Grassley's attempt at course-correction doesn't just end with the imposition of a CR; it's also accompanied by a freeze on congress's ability to vote on anything else but the appropriations bills themselves, that is unless 30 days have passed, and we're talking absolutely must-consider legislation—like say a Supreme Court Justice nomination, this hardline yet pragmatic strategy is born of the notion that just as taxpayers are bound by the April 15 deadline, so too should Congress be bound by September 30 to sidestep the catastrophic fumbles that have tainted the process and, honestly, it's not hard to see the allure of a plan that might finally break this maddening cycle.
