Thanks to the House and Senate appropriations committee reorganization that took place earlier this year, the appropriations wrap up this fall promises to be particularly dreadful, causing headaches for politicians, congressional staff, and analysts alike. In a startling display of ignorance and lack of foresight, the House and Senate chose to reorganize their appropriations committees in an inconsistent and uncoordinated way. The result is a different number of appropriations bills in the House and Senate (11 in the House and 12 in the Senate) and committee structures that are not easily reconciled across the two chambers -- there are only six appropriations bills this year with identical jurisdictions. This situation is bound to cause confusion and grief on the Hill in forming and staffing conference committees for the remaining six bills without identical counterparts and also for outside analysts and observers in attempting to track appropriations for different programs across committee jurisdictions. It will almost surely lead to delays and drag out the conference committee process when Congress can least afford to waste its time. The Senate, in particular, now has more than a full plate with confirmation hearings and a vote on the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts (now for the post of chief justice), two difficult reconciliation bills, additional relief legislation for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, hearings into the federal response to the disaster, the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and more than half (seven, to be exact) of the appropriations bills to finish. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) already announced during the August recess that the Senate would be working well into the fall, past its target adjournment date - but it is unclear if even that extension will give them enough time to wrap up the work. Congress could very well be working through Thanksgiving or later again this year. Yet the delays will have a broader (and more significant) impact than simply changing holiday travel plans for members of Congress and their staff. Because of the incongruence between the organization of the House and Senate appropriations bills and because the Senate is woefully behind in its appropriations work with little hope of catching up, Congress appears headed for another round of unending, short-term continuing resolutions, and most likely another extremely large omnibus appropriations bill. Continuing resolutions are measures Congress passes that continue funding the federal government past the start of the new fiscal year when new legislation for funding has not been passed. Commonly called "CRs," the resolutions are passed by both chambers and signed by the president. Yet they fund government programs at the previous year’s level, not taking into account inflation, population growth, or demographic changes such as greater rates of poverty or numbers of uninsured. Funding the federal government through CRs for long periods, as Congress did last year when it was unable to finish the appropriations bills on time, inevitably has an negative impact on the services and programs Americans depend on. Further, the CRs ultimately lead to a last-stitch omnibus appropriations bill -- where all unfinished bills are throw together into one tremendous piece of legislation. Congress usually spends too little time debating and analyzing the contents of the omnibus bill, allowing unnecessary special interest projects and congressional pork to slip into the bill unnoticed. As we have previously observed, omnibus appropriations bills are bad policy:

Omnibus bills are bad legislative practice: they remove transparency and accountability from the appropriations process and usually lead to fiscal irresponsibility. The bills are massive, with plenty of cover to hide extra spending, legislative changes, and special interest items that end up making the bill more fiscally irresponsible than if the bills where passed separately. Removing transparency and accountability from the process by which Congress allocates government funds, especially for other members of Congress, is troubling.-- OMB Watcher June 27, 2005