The House and Senate passed a bill to keep the federal government funded through early next year. This avoids a shut down and all the costs that entails. But it also leans on a set of “continuing resolutions”, which essentially tell government agencies to do what they have been. Bypassing the regular budget process this way allows policymakers to avoid tough decisions about which programs deserve more resources and which will get less. And when this happens, children are often among the biggest losers.
When Congress adopts stopgap funding measures to avoid a shutdown and provide more time for negotiations, the discretionary programs requiring annual or regular appropriations are lucky to maintain spending at “current” levels, defined as past total spending or spending per capita.
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