Betsey Stevenson, Columnist

Congress Is Even More Dysfunctional Than It Looks

The political infighting over the next speaker has overshadowed the failure of the US House to pass a budget.

October 13, 2023 at 11:00 AM UTC

Betsey Stevenson is a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. She was on the president’s Council of Economic Advisers and was chief economist at the US Department of Labor.

But can they pass a budget on time?
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images North America

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While the political debate in the US is focused on who will be the next speaker of the House, what it will mean for next year’s election, and Republican disarray in general, too little attention is being paid to Congress’s failure to do its main job: approving a budget for the federal government.

Congress did not follow its own process and pass appropriations bills in time for the new fiscal year on Oct 1. Instead, at the last possible moment, it passed a stopgap measure that essentially allows the government to keep doing what it has been doing, extending funding for existing programs for another 45 days.