Rather than try to pass appropriations bills for fiscal 2013, U.S. congressional leaders have decided instead to pass a six-month-long stopgap spending measure that would keep funding at 2012 levels until the end of March/.../
The chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., left an Aug. 1 meeting with House leaders looking downtrodden, according to the defense lobbyist. Young said he did not expect a defense spending bill for 2013 at all.
Instead, he said he thought there would be a second six-month CR passed when the current one runs out at the end of March.
His frustration is understandable.
A CR strips appropriators of their authority, said Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The appropriators are no longer going through the budget, program by program, providing oversight. Their ability to approve new programs also is removed through a CR.
“It abdicates a lot of decision-making,” Harrison said. But it does not transfer that decision-making to the executive branch; it merely delays any decisions from being made.