THE BUDGET BATTLE BOOK

That job includes authoring, debating, and passing a budget for the astounding amount of discretionary federal spending that Congress is charged with managing each year—in this case, about $1.7 trillion.

- PETER SUDERMAN

IN THE FINAL weeks of 2022, just days before they broke for Christmas, members of Congress came together at the last moment for a familiar holiday ritual. For one week a year, they kind of, sort of do their job.

To avert a partial government shutdown, the spending bill was supposed to be passed by Friday, December 16. But on Thursday, December 15, with just a day left before the dreaded quasi-shutdown, Congress approved a one-week extension. “This is about taking a very simple, exceedingly responsible step to ensure we finish the year without hiccups and with minimal drama,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.).

At that point, no actual bill had been made public, meaning most lawmakers outside of leadership had little clarity about what was in it. The one-week extension resembled a last-minute reprieve for a college student who pleads for extra time to polish a major end-of-semester paper, of which not one word has actually been written.

As the following week began, it became clear that the bill was still very much a hypothetical construct, as much imagination as legislation. Reports in the morning papers indicated that the bill might or might not contain provisions related to airplane safety, a fresh extension of the child tax credit that had expired the previous year, changes to corporate tax policy, state conservation grants, money for military aid to Ukraine, and reforms designed to prevent the sort of electoral certification confusion that followed the 2020 presidential election. Also, $1.7 trillion in other spending, give or take.

That was Monday. The bill had to be passed before the end of the week so Congress could break for Christmas. But no text was available for inspection by the public, the press, or even most lawmakers.