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Budget insiders on Capitol Hill and elsewhere started to say as far back as last November that it would be difficult for a budget resolution to be adopted this year and that almost all of the action would be on appropriations. This became the common wisdom and the working assumption as the debate began in January.

But in spite of this, the Republican leadership last week claimed that the primary reason for the House's very limited action on fiscal 2003 appropriations was that the Senate did not adopt a budget resolution this year.

That is close to nonsense.

The budget process does not require a budget resolution to be in place before the House may move ahead with appropriations. In fact, it specifically provides a way for the debate to proceed when that happens - the full House can begin debating appropriations for the coming year after May 15 even if a budget resolution conference report has not been adopted by then.

We knew by last November that getting a 2003 budget resolution was going to be difficult. When the full Senate had not yet even debated its version by May 15, it was clear that a House-Senate compromise was going to be nearly impossible.

As a result, by the middle of May there was little reason for the House to think that it made sense to wait for the Senate before dealing with appropriations. At that point nothing much was likely to change.

But even though the House could have used the May 15 escape clause, it did not pass the first 2003 appropriation until June 27 - six weeks after the budget process allowed it. The next appropriation was not approved until three weeks later on July 17.

In other words, the House's failure to debate the fiscal 2003 appropriations was a totally discretionary decision by the leadership that had nothing to do with budget process rules or the lack of action in the Senate. The House could have moved ahead with the spending bills on May 16 if it had wanted to.

Blaming the lack of appropriations action on the Senate's failure to pass a budget resolution also makes no sense from an historical perspective. The failure of the Republican-controlled House and Senate in 1998 to adopt a fiscal 1999 budget resolution did not stop the House from moving ahead on the spending bills that year. In fact, all 13 of the 1999 appropriations were passed by the House before fiscal 1999 began, even though no budget resolution conference report was ever put in place.

By contrast, none of the fiscal 2003 appropriations have yet been signed into law.

The House of Representatives has always jealously guarded what it claims as its right to initiate action on spending bills. In the congressional equivalent of "don't call us, we'll call you," when the Senate goes first the House generally "blue slips" the spending bill by sending it back without taking any action.

House leaders were telling reporters last week that the Senate's failure to act on the fiscal 2003 budget resolution meant that the House did not know what spending levels would be acceptable.

But the House does not need to know what the Senate will do before staking out its own position on the amount it thinks should be appropriated. The House could have passed its version of an appropriation and then waited for the Senate.

In effect, the Republican leadership was saying last week that it did not want to vote on 2003 appropriations bills without having the cover of the Senate agreeing to the same spending levels the House was going to approve. That political concern, not some procedural hurdle, was why the Senate's failure to pass a budget resolution made it so hard for the House to move forward.

And what really made it hard for the House to consider appropriations this year wasn't that the Senate had not passed a budget resolution - it was that the House had. The House passed a budget resolution earlier this year, with spending levels it could no longer live with when it came time to adopt appropriations bills.

The Senate is absolutely at fault for not passing a budget resolution - and the leadership would have had a legitimate complaint if the House had passed its version of an appropriation but the Senate failed to act. But the assertion that the Senate is the reason that the House did not act on appropriations should be dismissed out of hand.

Question Of The Week

Unfinished Business. We still don't know which of the 13 fiscal 2003 appropriations will be enacted first, so there is still no winner for the question from Sept. 17. But we do know that none of the appropriations were enacted by Sept. 30, which means that Bridget Haverty, a financial analyst at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., wins the "I Won A 2002 Budget Battle" coffee/tea/hot chocolate mug for the question asked the week of Sept. 10. Bridget was selected at random from the many "Budget Battles" readers who submitted the correct answer.

Last Week's Question. The first continuing resolution for 2003 was adopted by the House and Senate on Thursday afternoon, Sept. 26. Although several readers picked that day, Jason Marino, a health policy adviser to Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., was closest to the actual time the Senate approved the bill, so he is the winner of the much admired but seldom acquired "I Won A 2002 Budget Battle" mug.

This Week's Question. As noted above, the budget rules say that the House of Representatives may move ahead with appropriations after May 15 if the budget resolution conference report has not been approved by that date. The question: What is the comparable date for the Senate?

Send your responses to scollender@nationaljournal.com by 5 p.m. PDT on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2002, and you could win an "I Won A 2002 Budget Battle" mug of your own. You must include your mailing address so the mug can be sent if you win. If there are duplicate correct responses, the winner will be selected at random from all those who answer correctly.

To The Moon, Alice! To The Moon!

Last January, National Journal, Government Executive and Fleishman-Hillard joined together to present "Three-Ring Budget," a half-day executive briefing on the 2003 budget debate presented by "Budget Battles" writer Stan Collender that used the sights and sounds of the circus to illustrate what was going to happen and why. Next January's briefing - "Houston, We Have A Budget" - will use anything and everyone who has ever said anything about space - possibly including Ralph Kramden's famous statement noted above - to bring the fiscal 2004 budget debate to life.

There will be substantial discounts for early registration, group discounts will be available, and a special venue in Washington is being negotiated. The details are almost ready to be revealed, but please contact Beverly Campbell (campbelb@fleishman.com or 202-828-9712) with any questions in the meantime.