Broken policy breaks budgeting even more

Furious at the killing of two American citizens in Minneapolis, Capitol Hill Democrats say they won’t give Immigration and Customs Enforcement any more money until it cleans up its act. “What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling —and unacceptable in any American city,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. 

Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., joined the growing chorus of senators saying they would not vote to continue ICE funding past the Jan. 30 deadline. “Enough is enough. We need to rein in ICE’s out of control conduct,” she posted on X.

Behind the fusillade are two important truths. One is that the Democrats are determined to use the budget, the only big tool they have at hand, to hold ICE accountable. The other is that pretty much everyone agrees that the budgetary process is broken and that using it in the middle of a pitched battle will only break the process more. 

Nobody wants to drive deeper cracks into the budgetary process. But the Democrats believe they have only one option to deal with ICE: draining the agency’s cash and shutting it down. 

The Democrats are playing the hand that the Republicans inadvertently dealt them at the end of last fall’s shutdown, the longest in American history. The House passed all 12 of the appropriations bills. The Senate passed half of them and held onto the rest. The Republicans, who controlled the chamber, could load them all into a “minibus” to pass them together or feed them into the process one at a time. They went for the minibus, a name borrowed from the 1990s for party buses. But they brought no party. 

The Democrats won the promise of a vote on health benefits and an extension of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program food benefits. And the deal continued the crisis already in progress, with the next phase this week.

These crises have become more regular and more damaging, not just for the politics of the system but also for the basic order of the government. We’ve been worrying about the erosion of trust in government but seem determined to make it worse.

Six of the nation’s biggest budget experts—Doug Criscitello, Ed DeSeve, Teri Gullo, Phil Joyce, Roy Meyers and Steve Redburn—have just collaborated on a manifesto, calling everyone to action for a “Radical Reform of the Federal Budget Process.”

The team writes, “Having endured the longest-ever government shutdown at the beginning of this fiscal year, even the most casual observers should see that the federal budget process is not meeting its most basic goal: funding the government. Nor does the process help leaders allocate resources to deliver reliable results for the American people.”

The budgetary process was always chock-full of politics. It lies right at the core of the system that uses government’s power to figure out how to allocate always-scarce tax dollars. It was the biggest program that Madison and his colleagues had to sort out when they drafted the Constitution in 1787. 

But, as the authors of the manifesto point out, the system’s politics are playing themselves out in new ways that hyper-politicize the process and undermine any expectation for doing things in a way that makes it possible for anyone to have reasonable expectations about anything. 

The executive branch is refusing to spend money that Congress appropriates and spending money that Congress hasn’t authorized. The president hasn’t made a detailed budget proposal. Congress isn’t getting its work done on time. It’s been 30 years, in fact, since it has completed its appropriations bills before the start of the fiscal year. And there’s increasingly no connection between the money coming in and the cash going out. 

We don’t have to keep doing this to ourselves. The manifesto lays out 10 characteristics of an effective budget process:

1. Comprehensive: including all of government’s financial resources.
2. Legitimate: only legally responsible officials should make budgetary decisions.
3. Honest: decisions should rest on accurate and timely information.
4. Transparent: taxpayers ought to be able to understand budgetary decisions.
5. Timely: budgetary decisions should be completed on time.
6. Cooperative: the budget should complement, not compete with, other key decisions.
7. Perceptive: the budget ought to take a long-term view.
8. Judgmental: taxpayers ought to expect decisions that produce the highest value for the least cost.
9. Constrained: the process ought to put brakes on how much policymakers can spend
10. Responsive: budgetary decisions ought to match what the public wants

It’s been 50 years since we’ve rebuilt the budgetary process, with the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The nasty headlines make clear it’s time to do it again. And the manifesto lays out a game plan for how to do it—now, and even better than the last time. 

But two things we don’t want or need. One is trying to cut politics out of the process. That would be like trying to start a restaurant without ordering food.

The other is gaming the process, as happened with the current minibus, is only looking for trouble. It’s blown up in the Republicans’ faces, with just the wrong issue at the wrong time. It’s irresistible catnip for the Democrats, but playing the game only sets up the next crisis and further lowers the public’s trust.

We need a budgetary process that serves the highest purposes of government. The manifesto provides the foundation for making it happen. 

Authors of the Manifesto will be discussing the project on Thursday, Jan. 29 at 2:00 pm ET, in a forum open to the public. Sign up to register.

Donald F. Kettl is Professor Emeritus and Former Dean at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.