CONTINUING RESOLUTIONS BY DESIGN.

In Saturday's lament over the Fall of the Key Bridge, I offered a cranky observation.

In the wrangling, perhaps we see why Congress enjoys those government-shutdown-continuing-resolution follies.

Republicans are not the only critics. Some liberals are also questioning Biden’s proposal, arguing that the blame for the tragedy lies, at least in part, with the owner of the cargo vessel, which should bear some portion of the repair costs.

“Let’s be clear about the tragedy in Baltimore. That bridge didn’t just collapse. There was no earthquake. The bridge was knocked down (apparently) by a private ship that lost control. Shouldn’t they be at least partly responsible for fixing it?” said Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist and Vice President Harris’s former communications director.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Wednesday on MSNBC that she expected insurance payments to cover part of the cost to rebuild the bridge.

The debate is sure to get only more spirited after Congress returns to Washington in mid-April following the long holiday break; party leaders will already be grappling with a number of radioactive issues, including an extension of the government’s domestic spying authority and military aid for Ukraine and Israel.

In that final paragraph, note a bundle of policies that have non-intersecting, noisy cheering sections.  None of them can survive an up-or-down vote.  "Bipartisanship" means assembling a crap sandwich with just enough sprinkles to satisfy each cheering section. An earmark for Baltimore's Key Bridge is one more sprinkle.

Yahoo News producer Kate Murphy, previously of al-Jazeera and Cablevision, offers an explanation.

U.S. government shutdowns didn’t happen until the 1980s when Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti, under the Carter administration, issued a stricter interpretation of the 1884 Antideficiency Act that basically said: no budget, no spending.

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to come up with a federal budget, which involves figuring out how much money the government can spend over the course of an upcoming fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1. It’s then approved by the president.

Ronald Reagan once had his staff pile up the binders containing an early continuing resolution on a table in the well of the House, in order to warn Congress that he would veto any subsequent bills.  I don't know whether he made good on his threat; I know that such bills, cobbled together with insufficient time to read them, are regular features these days; and that attempts to give Members of Congress time to read them, or to limit the injection of crap sandwiches or sprinkles, depending on your perspective, through House rules, have been honored more in the breach than in the observance ever since.

That's the sausage-making Ms Murphy elides in her explanation.

Therefore, Congress must pass 12 separate funding bills (aka appropriations bills), a standard for every fiscal year, starting on Oct. 1, to provide money for things like defense, education and transportation programs.

Congress typically bundles the 12 appropriations bills into a package, known as a massive omnibus bill.

If there are twelve appropriations for the Constitutionally-specified federal functions, there are opportunities for a fiscally-minded Member of Congress or a president bound by the Constitution to object to those irrelevant sprinkles, irrespective of the Urgency with which some of the kids clamor for them.  A bundle, on the other hand, in which all those federal functions are at risk unless the omnibus passes, is an omnibus with lots of kids carrying ice cream treats on board.

The House appears to be struggling to temper two principles: that the federal functions be funded, and that the government not borrow too much printed money, by making it harder to bundle the functions, sprinkles, and crap sandwiches.

Government shutdowns are more likely to occur when the House and the Senate are controlled by rival political parties or when one party controls Congress and the president is a member of the other. The threat of a government shutdown has frequently been used as a bargaining chipin budget negotiations.

Because short-term spending bills often last for only a few weeks or months, there is no shortage of opportunity for the parties to deadlock. Since September, the threat of a partial government shutdown has happened five times.

This déjà vu could also have something to do with a recent unusual approach to CRs.

Last November, House Speaker Mike Johnson proposed a “laddered continuing resolution.”  Instead of one deadline for one massive funding bill deadline, this approach creates a series of funding deadlines. If they aren’t met, government agencies would shut down at different times, instead of all of them shutting down at the same time.

In November, Congress passed a laddered continuing resolution that broke apart the 12 government funding divisions into two units. This created a January deadline to fund things like veterans’ affairs, transportation, housing and energy, and with a separate February deadline that covered the remainder of the government programs.

Then, in January, a short-term funding extension created a new pair of new deadlines for March 1 and March 8. As a result, the House and Senate passed a $460 billion package of six (out of 12) government funding bills that President Biden signed into law on March 9, getting Congress to the halfway mark in their appropriations work for the 2024 budget year.

This brings us to the March 22 deadline. If the Senate passes the proposed $1.2 trillion package that wraps up the remaining six spending bills before the midnight deadline, it means the government will be funded through the end of the fiscal year. This will also put an end to the seemingly never-ending cycle of government showdowns — at least until this September.

The public might be fed up with the ongoing shutdown drama. The ongoing shutdown drama, though, is the way the political class takes care of its own.

Legislation should be simple and focused on one basic item. There needs to be one solitary bill for border security; but instead, packages are concocted with numerous disconnected spending items. This is a method to slip in items that legalize corruption and quid pro quo deals.

The lawmakers hope that their voters will never read the thousand-page package. The bills are purposefully lengthy and complicated so readers are discouraged from the very first page.

The media focuses on fiery exchanges in Congress during hearings. The lawmaker prepares for this like an actor to “humiliate” their opponents. “Thug life” sound bites are shared on social media in which a “conservative” lawmaker ostensibly stands up against the bill—and voters conflate words with actions. But usually, there is no concrete action taken after the theatrics during hearings, which few bother to verify.

The lawmakers who put on a theatrical display during the hearing surreptitiously voted for the trillion-dollar spending packages that do not benefit citizens.

These lawmakers are not held accountable because voters remember the “thug life” drama and not the vote for a harmful and expensive package. They are re-elected, and the cycle follows forever.

The good news: something that cannot go on forever, won't. The bad news: when bond traders cease to buy Treasuries, none of the oratory of Barack Obama or the bluster of Donald Trump or the caffeinated shouting of Joe Biden will have any effect.