An 11th-Hour Spending Deal That Comes Up Short

With Christmas just a week away and the new year nearly upon us, Congress came within a whisper of yet another potential government shutdown and once again demonstrated its inability to make substantive spending cuts and deliver the American people the reforms necessary to secure America’s fiscal future. Rather than produce a timely budget by way of standard operating procedure, congressional leaders again butted up against the deadline and reached a deal on a trillion-dollar “mega-omnibus” nine-bill appropriations package that sadly is yet another disappointing failure to rein in government spending.

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Patrick Louis Knudsen, the Grover M. Hermann Senior Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs at The Heritage Foundation, explains that the deal, which is expected to be voted on today, comes up far short in instilling fiscal discipline in Washington and, equally troubling, “allows everyone to vote for something he likes, while taxpayers pick up the tab”:

The main omnibus measure, formally the Final Consolidated Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2055), spends a total of $914.8 billion in annualized budget authority (BA) for fiscal year 2012, which started on October 1. (Agencies covered by the nine bills have been funded by continuing resolutions until now.)

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