In yet another verse of the song that has become disturbingly familiar to feds, Congress averted a government shutdown with mere hours left in the fiscal year by passing a Continuing Resolution (CR). FMA National President Craig Carter issued the following statement on the CR:

“The Federal Managers Association commends the House and Senate on the passage of a continuing resolution (CR) earlier today. A CR is definitely preferable to a government shutdown and will keep America’s hard working federal employees doing their Congressionally-mandated jobs. Of course, a CR is never preferable to budgets passed in a timely manner. Continuing resolutions hinder the ability of the government and the military to plan for the fiscal year ahead. Key positions cannot be filled with new hires. Critical projects cannot begin because there is no guarantee they will be funded by the eventual budget, and a lack of resources to lay the groundwork even if they are funded. Contractors and small businesses suffer unnecessarily. The total cost to taxpayers and the government as a result of the uncertainty from any CR is reliably in the billions of dollars.”

“FMA thanks Congress for coming together to do the right thing and to keep the federal government from shutting down. We urge both houses of Congress to return to regular order in carrying out their constitutionally-mandated duty of passing all twelve appropriations bills in a timely manner going forward. Passing these spending bills is critical to enabling federal workers and agencies to carry out their crucial missions on behalf of the American people.”

In plain language, CR’s are terrible for feds and for Americans. Only in comparison to a government shutdown to CR’s become palatable, and then only because of the appalling consequences of a government shutdown. When the government shuts down, feds are forced to go without the paychecks they depend upon to pay for their mortgages, rent payments, child care payments, food, savings, and other basic necessities. While back pay for furloughed feds was customary, it was not enshrined in law until 2019. The Federal Managers Association was instrumental to the passage of the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, which legally guarantees back pay to all federal employees. FMA endorsed this bill, which was sponsored by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Susan Collins (R-ME), who are both key friends and allies of FMA.

Our strong preference is that this bill should never actually be needed. Congress is endowed by the Constitution with the power of the purse. In other words, Congress is responsible for drafting and passing annual bills to fund the government and enable continued operations of all necessary programs. This is not Congresses’ only job, but it is almost certainly their most important responsibility. There was, and still ought to be, an expectation that Congress will successfully pass all appropriations bills and fully fund the government for the following fiscal year before the previous fiscal year ends. Unfortunately, the last time all appropriations bills passed on time without a shutdown, or a continuing resolution was in 1997 – almost a quarter century ago. The concept of “regular order” has become something of an anachronism, as the last time “regular order” was a regular occurrence falls outside of living memory for the average staffer on Capitol Hill.

FMA will continue to work with our partners in Congress to pass the full set of Appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2022, which began on October 1 of this year. The House has now passed nine of the twelve bills, while the Senate has thus far failed to pass a single appropriations bill for FY 2022. As this process continues, it is important to keep two things in mind: that a CR is vastly better than a government shutdown, and that the failure to fund the government through regular order is unacceptable, regardless of how typical it has become.