Understanding the Continuing Resolution

Experiencing some budget beffudlement in regard to the fiscal 2011 continuing resolution agencies are operating under until March 4? John Kamensky of the IBM Center for the Business of Government has shared a slide deck prepared by his colleague Carl Moravitz that sheds some light on the situation.

"We've had CRs for most of the past 30 years," Moravitz notes in the deck. "However, seldom have they been across all of government for this long." (The last extended CR came in 1995.)

The big sticking point this year, Moravitz notes, is that the House GOP leadership wants not only to hold the line on spending (which the CR does, in most cases), but actually significantly reduce it. The result could be a "perpetual CR," or at least one lasting through fiscal 2012, that would cut funding not only at domestic agencies, but at departments that have traditionally been protected from reductions: Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.

Even if that doesn't happen, Moravitz says, the current CR is likely to be extended for the rest of fiscal 2011, unless the House and Senate can come to some agreement on spending levels.